Captain Ryan Hathaway, Okeechobee County Fire Rescue and Amy Cormier, DOH Health Educator educated Safe Baby Academy participants on sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), ABC’s of safe sleep techniques, water safety and car seat installation. Proper nutrition and breast feeding were taught by Shonda Flores and Maribel Castaneda Nunez from DOH WIC. Graduates received a Safe Sleep Kit, a Pack-n-Play and a car seat. The Safe Baby Academy was created to prevent premature deaths and aligns with the State Health Improvement Plan (SHIP) and Okeechobee’s Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) goals.

Martin County is making strides in helping residents live a healthier lifestyle. Working in collaboration with the House of Hope, a not-for-profit agency dedicated to helping residents overcome hunger and hardship and Cleveland Clinic/Martin Health, DOH-Martin is providing diabetes prevention workshops to residents who have limited access to diabetes education. The workshops are led by our nurse program specialist and certified diabetes educator, Marybeth Peña. The programs focus on management strategies, healthy recipes/demos, information on goal setting and more. The story is featured here: http://bit.ly/2KVPmJ4

DOH-Columbia/Hamilton hosted the "World's Greatest Baby Shower" at the Richardson Community Center in Lake City, FL to promote prenatal and infant health care, nutrition, breastfeeding, avoidance of substance use, as well as teach skills in parent and infant safety, and increase knowledge of community resources. Over 70 mothers attended and 21 community agencies were represented. Participants viewed exhibits, played games and even won prizes!

The Miles of Smiles dental team and a few enthusiastic DOH staff and friends gave out a total of 3,438 toothbrushes, toothpaste and floss packets to ghouls, goblins, fairies, princes and superheroes of every kind at Trunk or Treat at the new Wilson Park in downtown Lake City. Of the 3,438 toothbrushes, 1,911 of them were given to ages 8+; the remaining were to younger children.

On October 30, the Florida Department of Health in Okaloosa County presented the draft version of the 2019 Community Health Assessment (CHA) Update to their CHA Leadership Team. The document includes information about health equity, life expectancy and data that relates to each of the county's four Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) groups. Feedback was collected from attendees and will be used to shape the final version of the document. In addition, the CHIP Group Champions shared the progress made by their members over the past year and their plans for 2020.

DOH-Collier hosted a Community Health Improvement Planning Retreat. Information gathered from this retreat will begin the development of the 2020-2023 Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP). There were 24 participants representing 18 key organizations that participated in the planning retreat where cross-sector workgroups collaborated on the community-wide health priorities identified in the Collier County Community Health Assessment. These priorities include: Mental Health, Chronic Diseases, Access to Care, Alcohol and Drug Use and Health of Older Adults. Community partners are looking forward to further collaboration within their workgroups to benefit Collier County residents.