Happy June friends, 

We have some great news to share! We learned late last month that Rainbow Fleet has been selected to receive a Wellness Initiative Grant from the Oklahoma City Community Foundation. With this grant we will implement our Healthy Bodies Healthy Minds initiative.

Healthy Bodies Healthy Minds is a one-year program designed to encourage physical activity and nutritional eating for children, providers and families.

This program is important because the health research statistics for Oklahoma children and youth are troubling. For example, we have the sixth highest rate of obesity in the nation. Among all states we rank 44th in terms of physical activity,  44th in the rate of vegetable consumption and 49th in the rate of fruit consumption. These statistics must change if we are to improve the health of our children.

The program is open to all licensed child care providers. Twenty family child care homes and 10 child care centers will be accepted. Preference will be given to homes that are currently enrolled in the QEI Program and the Child and Adult Care Food Program.

Providers in the program will receive intensive training, technical assistance, modeling and resource kits. The resource kits contain a variety of items intended to encourage physical activity, including exercise and sports balls, hula hoops, jump ropes, mini cones, etc. The kits also include nutritional games/activities, modeling food and other items to educate kids about making healthy food choices. These materials are inclusive of ages from infants to school-age children and incorporate open-ended activities. 

Program participants will receive one formal training/activity and one informal activity or technical assistance session each month. The group trainings will count toward the required licensing training hours and will be offered free of charge to program participants.

For more information, contact Taffy Henderson, thenderson@rainbowfleet.org. 

This wonderful program would not be available except for the generous support we have received from the Oklahoma City Community Foundation.  A big "thank you" to the foundation's board, staff and donors for their support.

We can't wait to get started, so sign up today.

Respectfully,

Carrie Williams 

The Cleveland County Health Department, along with community partners, is working on updating our community health assessment (CHA). Over the next several months, we will gather data from several sources ranging from hospital discharge data to direct community feedback via surveys and meetings. Once we have gathered the data, we will present the findings to a group of community leaders in hopes of reaching a consensus on what should be the top health priorities for Cleveland County. Those priorities will drive the development of our community health improvement plan (CHIP).

Attached are electronic links to the Community Health Survey we are distributing this month. It is available in English and Spanish. We hope for the widest dissemination possible in order to facilitate a large response, so it is also available in paper format at various locations all across the county. The goal is to reach as many as possible who live, work or attend school in Cleveland County.   

Please take the survey and share with those you know, work with, attend school with or do business with in Cleveland County. If you are interested in more information or would like to be a collection site for the paper surveys please let us know!

2015 Cleveland County Community Health Status Survey

2015 Encuesta del Estado de Salud de la Comunidad del Condado Cleveland