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Project Name: Healthy Start Initiative-Eliminating Racial/Ethnic Disparities (H49)
Applicant Title: CHILDREN'S SERVICE SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN
Abstract Text: Agency: Children’s Service Society of Wisconsin (d/b/a Children’s Wisconsin) Project Director Name: Kristin Kopcha, Director, Family Preservation and Support Contact Number Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx; Fax: xxx-xxx-xxxx Email: xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx Website address: https://www.chw.org/childrens-and-the-community Funds Requested: $5,500,000.00 CSSW is partnering with the Black Child Development Institute-Wisconsin, Essentially Empowered Inc., and other cross sector stakeholders to expand and enhance the Milwaukee Healthy Start Program (HS Program). Milwaukee HS was launched in 2019 to address high rates of infant mortality and to reduce disparities in maternal child health outcomes for BIPOC families who live in Milwaukee. Over the past five years, the program has achieved notable results including steady annual increases in enrollment and participation, and consistently meeting HS benchmarks in key indicators of maternal-child health. Continuation funding will be used to build upon the progress made with a more targeted focus on reaching specific Zip Codes™ and neighborhoods in the City of Milwaukee where IMR, pre-term birth, and low birth weight rates remain highest. Project Area: The City of Milwaukee is a diverse, vibrant and urban community that struggles with high rates of poverty, segregation, community violence, housing insecurity, opioid related deaths, and other structural and social barriers that impact on community safety, health, and well-being. A tragic result of these structural and social conditions is a disproportionately high rate of infant mortality and poor maternal-child health outcomes among BIPOC families who reside in Milwaukee’s poorest neighborhoods. In the three-year period from 2019-2021, a total of 246 infant mortalities were recorded in Milwaukee. The combined three-year IMR rate for Milwaukee was 9.4:1,000 births. Target Population: The target population for the Milwaukee HS program is African American and Hispanic women who reside in 11 zip codes in the City of Milwaukee that experience the greatest disparities in infant mortality, low-birth weight, and pre-term birth. From 2019-2021, African American infants accounted for a disproportionate share of the city’s total number of infant deaths. While African American infants made up less than half (48.2%) of the total number of live births in Milwaukee, the same group accounted for over two-thirds (68.7%) of the total number of infant deaths. Hispanic infants made up 21.3% of live births and 13.8% of infant deaths. Program Goals/Objectives: The goals of the Milwaukee Healthy Start Program are to: (1) Reduce infant mortality rates in Milwaukee by providing high quality case management/care coordination and services that facilitate access for pregnant women to medical care, group-level education, and community resources; and (2) Mobilize a Community Consortium of cross-sector stakeholders to create and implement a community health improvement plan to address social determinants of health that contribute to disparities in MCH outcomes. Objectives over the five year project are to: • Provide case management/care coordination services to 450 unduplicated participants annually. • Provide an array of group-based preventive health and prenatal education programs that reach 250 unique and unduplicated participants annually. • Implement creative outreach and recruitment strategies that will increase engagement of pregnant women in Milwaukee that experience the highest rates of infant mortality. • Connect participants to prenatal care clinical services, behavioral health care, and other specialty services that promote healthy birth outcomes and family wellbeing. • Engage the expanded Milwaukee Healthy Start Community Consortium in the development and implementation of a community health improvement plan to address upstream factors that contribute to disparities in maternal child health outcomes in the City of Milwaukee.