Prevention Partner Headquarters

GOVERNMENT

Government Prevention Partners follow these strategies:

Promote Healthy Behaviors
Promote Healthy Communities
Prevent and Reduce Diseases and Disorders
Improve Health Systems

Promote Healthy Behaviors

Physical Activity

Create policies and fund programs that promote and support daily physical activity for elementary, middle and high school students.
Promote physical activity and implement model policies for government employees.
Work with communities to promote safe, accessible environments for physical activity.
Develop state funding for leadership in physical activity promotion

Nutrition

Ensure that the nutritional quality and servings of food provided by vendors of current government-funded meal and nutrition programs comply with mandates and if appropriate the USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
Create a statewide task force comprised of diverse individuals from public and private sectors, including nutrition experts, to implement strategies to meet the 2010 nutrition objectives.
Participate in a statewide approach to improve the nutritional quality of school breakfast and lunch programs.
Bridge the gap from WIC to school lunch subsidy.
Promote accurate menu and food labeling in restaurants.
Require daycare providers to meet the USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Tobacco Use

Strengthen and enforce Delaware's Clean Indoor Air Act.
Strengthen existing youth access laws and education of tobacco retailers about the laws.
Eliminate cost barriers for smoking cessation programs.
Increase excise taxes on tobacco products to reduce consumption of tobacco, particularly by teenagers.
Use and promote the "Plan for a Tobacco-Free Delaware" for policy, program, and budget decisions.

Alcohol and Drug Use Hero - Steven S. Martin
Steven S. Martin is a Senior Scientist with the University of Delaware's (UD) Center for Drug and Alcohol Studies, where he has worked since 1988. He researches and teaches courses about youth substance abuse and the effectiveness of drug treatment for criminal justice offenders. Steven evaluated three Centers for Substance Abuse Prevention grants in Delaware: the New Castle County Community Partnership, the statewide Delaware Prevention Coalition and the Delaware State Incentive Grant.

Alcohol and Drug Use

Govern the availability and distribution of alcohol.
Increase fines and penalties for those who provide alcohol to minors; close problem outlets.
Encourage schools and communities to provide research and science-based prevention and treatment education programs.
Assure adequate service continuum for adequate drug and alcohol treatment, particularly in Kent and Sussex Counties, for the insured as well as the uninsured.
Change zoning laws to restrict liquor outlets, in collaboration with communities.

Responsible Sexual Behavior

Monitor the implementation of new legislation that requires insurance companies to provide coverage for contraception.
Help schools and communities develop effective sexual health education policies and outcome based programs by coordinating or providing training and technical assistance.
Provide funds and assistance to peer programs focused on skill building and changing perceived norms about sexual behaviors.
Establish school based health centers in middle schools.

Environmental Quality Hero - The Honorable William Nicholson
Early in his now seven-year term as mayor of Kenton, William Nicholson went door to door to find out what issues were important to his 250 constituents. Pollution, particularly from leaking septic systems, emerged as their leading concern. When Mayor Nicholson began to address the problem, he didn't know it would lead to installation of Kenton's first sewer system five years later. He was a positive part of the investigation and remediation of a leaking underground gasoline tank in the center of Kenton, especially when interacting with his constituents about well water testing, replacement wells and treatment on wells. When the digging for the sewer uncovered chemicals in some soil and water, he worked closely with state agencies to remediate the problem.

Promote Healthy Communities

Environmental Quality

Increase government inspection of industries to enforce environmental codes, and partner with businesses and communities to identify and clean-up contaminated land.
Improve public transportation systems to reduce low-occupancy, personal motorized vehicle use and emissions, and develop institutional carpooling policies and incentives.
Encourage recycling and improve access for convenient disposable waste.
Improve monitoring of environmental hazards and health risks.
Improve public education campaigns to increase public awareness of environmental issues and associated health risks.
Work with authorities in neighboring states and the federal government via the Ozone Transport Commission to develop an ozone reduction plan for pollutants.
Establish a lead safe housing registry.

Violence

Work with the Department of Education to assure violence prevention programs are implemented in schools.
Develop a standard definition of family violence, child abuse, and sexual assault.

Increase financial support for family violence, including shelters, transitional housing, legal assistance, job training and placement, and follow-up services that ensure confidentiality and are culturally and linguistically competent.

Violence Hero - Anne Pedrick, MSSC
Anne Pedrick has fought for children's rights since earning her undergraduate degree in Behavioral Science from Wilmington College in 1991. While working at the Division of Family Services (DFS), Anne specialized in sexual abuse and serious injury cases. As a DFS investigator of crimes against children, she collaborated significantly with the Attorney General's Office, the medical community and law enforcement. In May of 2000, she became Program Administrator of the newly created Office of the Child Advocate (OCA).

Create financial support for sexual assault programs to include crisis intervention, 24-hour hotline, counseling, and prevention victim support services.
Increase financial support for child abuse prevention services including home visitation, preventive training, and public awareness.
Identify or create a task force to establish policy, protocols, and training and identify a public entity that recognizes the link among the different forms of violence prevention activities, similar to the Missouri model.
Develop a system for improving and analyzing government statistics related to intimate partner violence among adults and youth (including additional questions on the Youth Risk Behavior Survey).
Increase public information efforts aimed at reducing intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and child abuse.

Education

Create a partnership with community-based organizations and schools to develop more after school programs and quality daycare.
Provide opportunities for government employees to further their education.
Standardize tuition reimbursement policies.
Evaluate effectiveness of models and programs on educational attainment.
Promote use of "Birth to 3" program and expand ages to include "Birth to 5."

Prevent and Reduce Diseases and Disorders

Mental Health

Ensure that behavioral health is given parity with physical health in insurance coverage, general health policies, and legislative initiatives (including services for a broad range of diagnosable mental health problems).
Provide a continuum of appropriate, integrated behavioral health services that includes prevention, early identification, comprehensive assessment and intervention of mental health problems across the life span.
Develop coordinated strategic plans for mental health services that identify targeted needs and action-based strategies for communities throughout Delaware.

Injury and Disability

Implement and enforce OSHA safety practices for environment and safety.
Provide education on OSHA policies.
Develop the infrastructure for injury prevention in Delaware.
Create a hotline through the Delaware Helpline for potential injury "hot spots" in the community.
Establish statewide injury surveillance systems.
Increase enforcement, sentencing, public awareness, and treatment services for those who drive under the influence of alcohol, particularly repeat offenders.
Increase enforcement, public awareness, and educational efforts to reduce crashes resulting from aggressive driving.

Preventive Services Use

Provide employee benefits for government employees that include recommended screenings and immunizations.
Encourage workplace programs for health and wellness to include screenings and immunizations.
Revise school-based health center policies to include pregnancy prevention counseling and contraceptive services.

Infant Health

Assure that all children are covered by health insurance by offering a variety of options.
Provide funding for programs and materials to educate communities on health disparities related to infant health.
Expand partnerships among public health, health care providers, and the medical community to improve infant health, including linking pregnant women and infants to affordable services and increasing enrollment into Delaware Healthy Children Program.

Improve Health Systems

Access to Health Care Services

Establish a clearinghouse of insurance resources for businesses to aid them in purchasing decisions. The clearinghouse should enable purchasers to compare plans' costs, benefits, and rankings by national accreditation bodies.
Support the development of public-private initiatives to improve access to dental screening and treatment, including services provided in school-based settings and services for adults.
Implement regional and national marketing campaigns designed to recruit dental professionals to Delaware.
Build upon existing data to better understand on a continual basis where Delaware's greatest areas of need are by geography and provider specialty.
Form a transportation committee, comprised of all stakeholders (e.g., providers, citizens of remote communities, business leaders, Department of Transportation) to identify transportation barriers to health care services, develop strategies to eliminate these barriers, and support efforts to implement such strategies.
Increase cultural competence of government employees through workforce development activities and policies.