SRHD Takes a New Approach to Addressing Maternal Child Health Issues in Spokane County

Spokane Regional Health District is developing a community-based approach to address some of the maternal child health risk factors in Spokane County. This initiative will work with a specific neighborhood in collaboration with community partners and neighborhood residents. In the past, our efforts have been focused on working with individual women and children primarily through the First Steps program. The First Steps program, which helps pregnant women and new mothers, will be eliminated January 1, 2010. 

Health Officer Dr. Joel McCullough informed SRHD staff of the decision to cut the program this past fall, but held off on a formal announcement until a plan could be put into place to allow for a smooth transfer of services. "This was a painful decision to make, and one we do not take lightly," said McCullough. "The Health District is committed to working on maternal child health issues, but we feel we can do this more effectively through working with communities to assure protective factors are in place to support parents and provide a safer environment for children." McCullough added.

Several factors weighed heavily in this decision: shrinking state support, budget constraints and continuing upward trends in some maternal child risk factors such as maternal smoking and child abuse and neglect.

Nine staff members were recently notified that they could lose their jobs. Most of those individuals will be moved to other open positions within the health district.

The First Steps program was established in 1989 and its primary purpose was to reduce the frequency of low birth weight babies in Spokane County. However, the complexity of maternal child health issues has significantly increased since 1989 and the Health District must find new approaches to dealing with these very complex problems.