Fourteenth Annual Meeting: A Showcase for Healthy Collaboratives, Dayton Cultural & RTA Center.

The Center for Healthy Communities held its Fourteenth Annual Meeting on June 21, 2006 at the Dayton Cultural and RTA Transit Center, with about 75 guests attending. As always, the meeting was a chance to update the community on some of the work the Center is doing and to showcase some of the many wonderful collaborations among Dayton area health and human service providers that are targeted to improving the health of our community.

Center Director Kate Cauley welcomed attendees, with special recognition to Mayor Rhine McLin, County Commissioners Debbie Lieberman and Charles Curran, Montgomery County Clerk of Courts Dan Foley, and Karen Levin of the Levin Foundation.

The Center’s academic partners were represented by Marcia Muller, Vice President for University Advancement and President of the WSU Foundation and Gloria Goldman, Chair of the Nursing Department at Sinclair Community College. Also recognized were Margaret Metcalf, a longtime community supporter of the Center, and Evadene Harris, one of the original Community Health Advocates to work at the Center.

Carla Clasen, Co-director of the Center, presented the CHC Health Promotion Awards. These awards recognize collaborations between two or more groups that have contributed to improving the health of Montgomery County citizens. This year the Cancer Prevention Institute and the Life Enrichment Center received the award in the established collaboration (over 2 years) category for “Healthfest.” In the new collaboration (less than 2 years) category, Community Action Partnership and many partners received an award for “Feeding the Children.”

Guests at the meeting also had an opportunity to learn about several other successful collaborations through a display of posters. This year, for the first time, the Center for Healthy Communities solicited abstracts for posters that detailed work that organizations have done in partnership with others. These posters allowed attendees to learn about many programs and initiatives that help Montgomery County residents to improve and maintain their health. Attendees were able to view the posters and talk with the presenters after the formal program and before lunch was served.

This year the annual meeting was held at the Dayton Cultural and RTA Transit Center at 40 S. Edwin Moses Boulevard, which many annual meeting attendees were seeing for the first time. The Cultural and RTA Center, which opened in November 2005, involved the renovation of the historic Zion Baptist Church, whose sanctuary has become the Center’s auditorium. In the auditorium are pictures from the church’s over one hundred year history. The Cultural Center is available to the public for community, cultural, and artistic uses.

Poster Presentations at the Center for Healthy Communities Annual Meeting

An Asthma Intervention in Dayton Public Schools
William Tindall, Dept. of Family Medicine, WSU; Shalini Forbis, Children’s Medical Center; Judy Fehr, Linda McDole, Dayton Public Schools

 CARE House Child Advocacy Center
Teresa Wiles, Libby Nicholson, Maurice Lee, CARE House Child Advocacy Center

Consequences of Policy Change: Ohio Grandparent Affidavit
Dionne Simmons, Center for Healthy Communities

Greater Dayton Area Health Ministries Coordinators Collaboration
Chris VanDenburgh, Kettering Medical Center Network; Sharon Becker, Good Samaritan Hospital; Amy Carter, Greene Memorial Hospital; Rhonda Johnson, Episcopal Retirement Homes, Inc.

Safe Sleep for Your Baby
Jan DeVeny, Montgomery County Health District

Smokefree Kettering: Seeking to Pass a Clean Indoor Air Ordinance
Patricia R. Hale, Community Coordinator, Smokefree Kettering

Take Off Teens
Kay Parent, Carla Clasen, Center for Healthy Communities; Carol Gill, Ohio Department of Health

Transformation of Safety Net Medical Services in Dayton, Ohio
Sharon Sherlock, Amy Jomantas, Misty Cowgill; Reach Out of Montgomery County