Family Health Department
Child Repro Sexual Health
(Manager, Sue Kocela)

May public/professional education activities include the following:  
1. Three 2-hour workshops:
a. Disciplining Your Preschooler: May 9, Windsor
b. Picky Eater- Feeding Kids Right: May 14, Essex
c. Living With Your Spirited Child: May 28, Essex
2. Small workshops at Ontario Early Years Centres (city & county)
3. Three Prenatal series: 2 Windsor, 1 Leamington
4. Weekly classes at Building Blocks For Better Babies (BBBB) in four locations (2 city & 2 county)
5. Four weekly Just For Moms & Babies Series (2 Windsor, 1 Amherstburg, 1 Belle River)
6. Weekly breastfeeding clinic at Windsor WECHU.

Safekids' Week Campaign
This year’s theme is prevention of drowning.  Activities include:  a display at Devonshire Mall (partnering with the Canadian Coast Guard) on May 26, a display at Leamington Mall June 2, presentations at OEYC and BBBB, and an article in Windsor Parent Magazine.  Interventions will focus on promotion of by-laws for four-sided fencing around pools, back yard drowning hazards, and safety around large and small swimming pools.

Healthy Baby/Healthy Children Program
(Managers, Elizabeth Kinnaird-Iler and Shirley Davies)

Professional Development
Public Health Nurses and Family Home Visitors attended a conference hosted by the Children’s Aid Society entitled:  Assessing the Lethality of Domestic Violence.  This was a team in-service education opportunity and was helpful in the ongoing work with high-risk families.  As well, since many CAS staff were present, the positive relationship shared by the two agencies was reinforced, giving people the opportunity to interact with one another on a different level.  

Quality Assurance
The HBHC managers continue to work with the IRD Evaluation Specialist to develop a quality assurance process related to the prenatal component of the program.  The intent is that prenatal clients will receive HBHC care that is timely, holistic, appropriate, and well suited to their individual learning needs as they prepare to become parents.  

2006 Statistics for the Windsor Essex Health Unit area
# live births -  4512
# of families screened with the Parkyn Postpartum tool  - 4512
# of families who received a postpartum contact from a PHN  -  4411
# of families contacted within 48 hours of hospital discharge  - 3978

Youth & Steroids Project
The educational materials for secondary schools - posters, coach’s teaching booklet, and student wallet cards are being distributed to educators and coaches upon request.  The response has been very positive.  These resources, in addition to information and links, will be available on the website www.areyoujuiced.org which is part of the Health Unit’s website.

Nutrition
March was Nutrition Month.  The CSH team developed nutrition related resources for grade 5 students, their parents, and teachers.  The theme "3 out of 4 - that's the score" served to encourage children to eat foods from at least three of the four food groups at every meal. Students who participated in Nutrition Month activities had a chance to win a bicycle and helmet or a gift certificate for sports/active living equipment.  The initiative also included an evaluative component for teacher feedback.  The winning schools were Concord, Ste. Therese, and St Gabriel.

Sun Safety- “Where’s the Shade?”
“Where’s the Shade?” is part of a three-year sun safety initiative emphasizing shade as a way to reduce the risk of skin cancer.   The Arbor Week Committee joined the “Where’s the Shade?” campaign in a tree planting ceremony to honour St. Alexander School’s achievements in promoting sun safety. 
St. Alexander School was one of three schools to win a shade tree. “Where’s the Shade” organized a contest for grade four students.  The students were asked to create a picture depicting the importance of shade in preventing skin cancer.  St. Alexander was the top winner and also had their picture put on T-shirts for the entire class.  W.J. Langlois and General Brock are the other two winning schools. 

The evaluation of the "Over-Exposed" magazine is complete.  This initiative involved three Health Units: Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent, and Sarnia-Lambton.  The majority of participants (96.5%) found the magazine useful with 85.7% of participants reporting that they would be likely to wear sunscreen SPF 15 or higher.  The full report is available upon request.

Elementary School Sexual Health Program
We will be conducting a survey of the grade 8 teachers who received the in-class teaching program during the past two years. The purpose of the survey is to determine if current strategies and resources are effective in helping the grade 8 teachers increase their level of knowledge and confidence in teaching the Healthy Sexuality curriculum to their classes.  The results of the survey will be used for program planning for the 2007/08 school year.

Turn Off the Screen-Spring
The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit, in partnership with Health Action Windsor-Essex, provided the Turn Off the Screen-Get Moving promotional materials to all Windsor and Essex schools.  Last year 35 area schools participated in the Turn Off the Screen initiative.  Eight winning students from grades 3 and 6 have the opportunity to win a $100.00 gift certificate for sporting equipment from the Canadian Tire Store, via a draw.  Parents of the lucky students will also receive the book “365 Unplugged Family Fun Activities” by Steven Bennett and Ruth Bennett.

Recess Revival
Once again, elementary schools are being offered the opportunity to apply for a Recess Revival Grant through our partnership with the Health Action Windsor-Essex School Sub-committee. Schools who have not received this grant in the past are eligible to apply. Schools must use the funds to either update their tarmac surface ($500) or purchase kits for Active Kids ($300).  The goal is to increase physical activity opportunities for students during recess.  Last year, 17 schools benefited from this initiative.

Youth Action Alliance
Written by S.  Qadeer, Peer Leader
Over the past two months, Knot in My Life has been very busy. In March, we held a Kick Butt’s Day event in local high schools. We asked students to write on chart paper how they feel about Smoking and the Tobacco Industry. We received a lot of positive responses and also some media coverage.   In honour of Earth Day we created and distributed tiny paper trees with a message about how the Tobacco Industry products (cigarettes) affect the environment. These trees were distributed to businesses throughout Windsor-Essex County. On Earth Day, April 22, we had a display at Mic-Mac Park. The display was well attended by the public and we had an amazing amount of positive feedback. In sync with the display, we also helped to plant trees at Malden Park.

Information Resources Department
(Manager, Vacant)

IRD staff are in the process of integrating the two Health Promotion Information Coordinators and the Health Protection Graphic Designer into the communications team at weekly meetings. This is an opportunity to look at sharing ideas and projects and customizing messaging and ensuring uniformity in the branding theme we are going for. Already several ideas for improving the development and flow of projects have been generated.

The Web demo to the board has been deferred to the June meeting in light of this meeting’s abbreviated agenda.  Work on program content is still in process. A mechanism for departments to place their own timely news items will be in place shortly.

In General

Some general updates in the area of  knowledge exchange activities are as follows. We are taking three fourth year nursing students over the summer for their community placement and are placing two in each department in the fall semester, which means a minimum of 12 placements. Annual CPR re-certifications are planned for June for all nurses and dental staff.  ONA PD committee is planning two fall sessions.  Next month all managers and communication staff will be included in a plain language workshop held at the health unit. This will assist us with our summer education resource development.

Respectfully submitted,

Liz Haugh, Director