Durham,
North Carolina
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Sue Guptill
Child Health Program Supervisor
Durham County Health Department
Chair of Statewide Interagency Committee
(919) 560-7711
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| Description of effective Public Awareness and Child Find activities implemented in rural areas of your service region.
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- The most impressive child find activity in a fairly rural community was a local event in a county in North Carolina. They had a health fair and developmental screenings that lasted several days. It involved just about everybody in their community, and it was an amazing event. It included doing some simple health screenings, vision and hearing screenings, a variety of developmental screenings and distributing some resource information for families. The event was held in several different communities within their counties. Someone donated a bus or van to allow them to be mobile for the days of the fair, so they were able to bring their stuff into the communities.
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| Collaboration with other agencies in implementing public awareness or child find activities.
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- They collaborate with the Local Health Department, Mental Health, public schools and development evaluation centers, which are state organizations. Also collaborate with Head Starts, non-profit agencies, local childcare resource and referral agencies, non-profit parent support agencies, and a state funded program called Smart Start.
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| Process used to plan and implement public awareness and child find activities.
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- It varies from county to county, some have monthly meeting others quarterly. Most counties have a small budget for its council, so planning and implementing activities involves sharing resources among agencies. If they are doing a child find activity one agency might do the design, one might pay for the printing, and other agencies donate clerical time as in-kind contributions.
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| How does information regarding your services reach the most rural areas?
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- We have more success with word of mouth in really rural areas than with big splashy advertising. Some populations are reached only through churches.
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| Resources received from Local Agencies
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