People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history.” –Dan Quayle, former United States Vice President

Every year people make their new year’s resolutions—those secret self-promises that typically have the most positive and genuine of intentions, but somehow frequently don’t make it to manifestation. This year I have chosen to avoid the tradition of a resolution and have chosen instead to see the New Year as an opportunity to have that tremendous impact on history, as Dan Quayle put it.

I’m not saying I plan to go save the world tomorrow, but I would like to have tremendous impact on someone’s personal history. That’s where I would alter Dan Quayle’s thought. As HealthNet employees, we see and take opportunities to positively impact someone’s own personal history—their individual time line. I was curious as to what the odds are for this impact to occur just within our HealthNet family. Allow me to show you the math (and let’s hope I get it right; I’m in social services, not mathematics!).

There are approximately 600 employees serving 56,600 or more patients.

600 employees x 56,600 patients = 33,960,000

This means there is potential for 33,960,000 impactful moments (mathematically speaking)!

Millions of impactful opportunities are possible this New Year; and to me, this calls for a holiday revolution. I challenge you to make your resolution about one of those millions of opportunities and make it count. Who’s with me?!

Cheers, HealthNet…to making it count!

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. –Nelson Mandela 

As a proud member of the millennial generation, the news of former South African President Nelson Mandela came to me via the true blessing that is my precious smart phone. As I rapidly began typing his name into search engines to learn more, I came across a beautiful quote that spoke to me as a HealthNet employee.

As a Family Support Specialist with BIB/Healthy Families in the metro Indianapolis area, I have the privilege of seeing and experiencing a variety of cultures, languages, parenting practices, interpretations, and perceptions on a daily basis (and typically I can have all of those experiences before lunch!). It is part of what I love about my job. I have also seen other HealthNet employees have the same diversity-infused experiences at the clinics, administration office, and various outreach agencies. And perhaps without even knowing Mandela’s quote, I have seen those people speak to patients, participants, and other community members in a way that is easy to see words going to someone’s heart, not just their head.

In the last 10 years or so (forgive me, more than 10 years ago I was an adolescent or pre-adolescent), I have noticed a lot of emphasis on words and public word choice surrounding the holiday season. Whether it is choosing to say “Merry Christmas”, “Happy Holidays”, or “Seasons Greetings”, there seems to be a significant amount of emphasis on what words we choose to share a warm sentiment with another person.

So my challenge to you this holiday season, as well as the other 9-10 months of the year, is to internalize Mandela’s sentiment: whether it is literally speaking to someone (or attempting to speak to someone) in their native language, or if it is showing cultural sensitivity and consideration,  speak to someone’s heart. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up in the most ‘heart-felt’ conversation that you never even saw coming.

Warm Wishes from this Millennial!

To make a donation to our Better Indy Babies/Healthy Families programs, please click here. Give before midnight on Tuesday, December 31st, and your donation will be tax-deductible for 2013.

As the holiday season approaches, many of us are busy making lists of last minute ingredients we need to get for Thanksgiving dinner and preparing for the holidays. But imagine if instead of making a list of ingredients for your famous Thanksgiving pie, you were trying to find a way to buy the medicine for your sick child. For hundreds of Indianapolis residents, this is an everyday occurrence.

We are so grateful for all of our donors who donate to us each year, and hope you will consider joining them. Whether your gift is large or small, every penny makes a difference in the lives of our patients.

• $__ Any amount will help us raise $150,000 by December 31, 2013 to add 5 much-needed exam rooms and a procedure room for Women’s Health Services at HealthNet West Health Center.
• $25 provides patients with emergency medical needs such as medications, food, shelter, or transportation to and from medical offices.
• $50 helps build literacy by providing books, volunteer readers and child-friendly waiting areas for HealthNet’s Reach Out and Reach Program. Children ages 6 months to 5 years receive a brand new, age appropriate book at each well-child visit.
• $100 gives HealthNet the ability to use your donation for the programs and people who need it most urgently. What a wonderful way to reach out to others with the gifts of hope!
• $500 helps provide services through our Better Indy Babies & Healthy Families Programs that teach and encourage the skills that make a family work.
• $1000 provides tuition for a Certified Nursing Assistant (CAN) training and certification for someone in the Homeless Initiative Program.

You can put your gift to work even faster by giving online now by clicking here. To donate by phone, please call 317-957-2018. To donate by check, please send to HealthNet, Inc. Attn: Kay Johnson, 3403 E. Raymond St., Indianapolis, IN 46203.

On behalf of us all here at HealthNet, thank you for your generosity and continuous support. 

I distinctly remember a “game” my grandfather used to play with me that taught me more life values than most childhood games I ever played; I believe he called it “Bug Hunting.” He was a fisherman and taught me that buying bait was a waste of money, since it was more fun (and free) to go and find worms in the dirt. Finding worms became a competition between my brother and I, making the whole game more ‘profitable’ for my grandfather, since we always ended up with more worms that way. The game evolved on a warm Sunday afternoon, however, when I was about 5 years old. As it turned out, my aunt is absolutely petrified of worms, and my grandfather knew it (I did not at the time). The game evolved from finding the bugs, to my grandfather using my devoted obedience to him to scare my aunt. He brought me close to him, saying “Aunt Jenny loves worms, Tori. Why don’t you go give her one? She’d love it! And if she runs away and screams, it’s just part of the game, so you have to chase her until she takes it from you to win!” Being five, I believed every word. I ended up chasing my screeching aunt through a field for about 10 minutes. Needless to say, I never “won”.

But being an adult now, I remember this game and now see it as a life lesson in personal management. Allow me to explain:

While I can go on a personal ‘bug hunt’ to find what it is that “bugs” me (finding my own personal triggers for anger, frustration, etc), there will always be other people who will find them for me. That’s the beauty in human interaction: allowing others to teach you something you did not know about yourself before you met them. There are certainly days I have felt that I could have gone without learning about a certain trigger, particularly if it was one for feeling annoyed, I later appreciated the opportunity and education.

A lot of people find the holiday season to be both a blessing and a curse, which is the perfect recipe for a ‘bug hunt’ to occur. So this holiday season, give yourself some time to go on your own ‘bug hunt’ to proactively find your own triggers and develop ways to overcome them or, better yet, eliminate them. Talk to your friends, family, coworkers, or community professionals such as your Family Support Specialist on stress management techniques, coping skills, and ways to make the holidays inclusive, safe, and fun for the whole family.

Happy Hunting and Happy Holidays!

Post by Denise Kaspar

Healthy Families America is a nationally recognized evidence-based home visiting program model designed to work with overburdened families who are at-risk for adverse childhood experiences, including child maltreatment. HealthNet’s Healthy Families program has been providing home-based family support services for approximately eighteen years.  Healthy Families America has a strong research base, which includes randomized control trials and well-designed quasi-experimental research.  To date, research and evaluation indicate impressive outcomes. Reviews of more than fifteen evaluation studies in twelve states produced the following outcomes:

• Reduced child maltreatment
• Increased utilization of prenatal care and decreased preterm and low birth weight babies
• Improved parent-child interaction and school readiness
• Increased access to primary care medical services
• Increased immunization rates

The primary goal of prenatal care coordination is early entrance and continued participation in prenatal and postpartum care to reduce low birth weight, preterm labor, and infant mortality.  Prenatal Care Coordinators and Community Health Workers provide home-based support services and referral to human services for pregnant women and their families at risk for poor pregnancy outcomes due to physical, social, psychological, financial, or environmental factors.  HealthNet’s prenatal care coordination program, Better Indy Babies (BIBs), has been providing these services for well over twenty years.

Better Indy Babies’ goal is to decrease the incidence of low birth weight and infant mortality.

Research was completed on a similar program in New York City and it was found that home visiting programs during the prenatal period reduces the incidence of low birth weight.

Additionally, both of HealthNet’s programs increase school readiness – first through assisting mothers to have a healthy birth outcome and then assisting overburdened families to enhance parent/child interaction and improve family functioning.

HealthNet’s home visiting services help promote physical well-being and motor development, social and emotional development, approaches to learning, language development, cognition and general knowledge.  Our services recognize and honor the special role that parents play in shaping the lives of their children and can help create families and communities and children ready to learn.

Click here for more information about Better Indy Babies/Healthy Families.

Together, HealthNet’s Better Indy Babies and Healthy Families programs provided more than 10,955 visits to at-risk homes in Marion County. With your help, we can do even more.

Here’s a sobering statistic.

Just released data, complied by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, reports that Indianapolis ranks near the bottom — 46th in the nation — in infant mortality, with a rate of 9.7. Thankfully, that’s DOWN from the previous year’s rate of 11.3.

Although still higher than most other developed countries, the U.S. infant mortality rate has declined by 34 percent since 1990. Developments in maternal health and advancements in medical technology partially explain the trend. Despite improvements, racial disparities persist, with African-American (11.6 per 1,000 live births) and American Indian (7.6 per 1,000 live births) infants experiencing higher mortality rates when compared to their white counterparts. And the effects of poverty play a significant role too.

Those takeaways ring true especially for our Better Indy Babies and Healthy Families staff, who are all about helping kids get a great start in life.

Check out the report. It’s worth the read. We commend the Casey Foundation for raising awareness about key issues that can lead to better lives for all Hoosier kids. The question is, what can we, here in Indianapolis, do to keep Indy’s infant mortality rate going DOWN and help our community flourish?

There are lots of challenges to consider. Neighborhoods. Safety. Jobs. Health. Resources. Education.

Each of those is a big challenge, but each needs to be addressed in concert so that more families have more opportunities for a higher quality of life. We owe it to our kids to start the conversation.

Did you grow up with Sesame Street? For more than 40 years, the program has been a staple in millions of households. It taught us the alphabet, brought music into our lives, guided our social development, and even helped us cope with some of life’s toughest moments – like death and divorce.

But above all, Sesame Street focuses on preparing young children for success in school and life. That’s why Sesame Street Live, Entercom Communications and its radio stations WZPL and WNRT have partnered with us to promote awareness for HealthNet’s Better Indy Babies at Saturday’s 2 p.m. performance.

Over the years, Sesame Street’s mission has been to bolster the school-readiness of children around the world. But first, children must have a safe place to live and a good home environment to nurture their growing minds and bodies if they are to succeed in life. Better Indy Babies plays a huge role in making that happen for many Indianapolis families.

Better Indy Babies (BIBs) began in 1989 to battle the infant mortality rate in Indianapolis which was one of the worst in the country.  Better Indy Babies is a prenatal care coordination program providing services in areas surrounding our primary health care centers. The purpose of the program is to improve the health status of women participating in HealthNet’s OB program in order to reduce infant mortality rates and the incidence of low birth weight infants.

The BIBs program performance data documents a 30% reduction in infant mortality rates, a 20% reduction in preterm deliveries, decreased neonatal intensive care use, and increased self-esteem and parenting skills.  Satisfaction surveys also verify that program participants feel positive about their prenatal experience and that barriers were reduced as a result of their participation in the program.

So, if you’re looking for a fun activity for your family this weekend and want to help Indy kids grow and thrive, be sure to get tickets to Saturday’s performance and stop by our booth. We’ll have games and prizes for the little ones!

In the meantime, take these fun quizzes and test your Sesame Street knowledge!

• Sesame Street has been the source of some of the most beloved children’s songs ever. How many can you remember?

http://mentalfloss.com/node/13479/take

• If you were even a semi-regular watcher of Sesame Street in your formative years, chances are you have great memories of the characters and sketches on the show that made you love learning. See how much you remember.

http://beyondthebox.org/take-the-ultimate-sesame-street-quiz/

• If you were a Sesame Street character, which one would you be? Take this personality quiz and find out!

http://www.blogthings.com/thesesamestreetpersonalityquiz/

As parents, we sometimes are so busy taking care of our children that we lose track of some of the details of their lives.

Take 5 minutes and test yourself with this 16-question quiz recommended by our Better Indy Babies and Healthy Families staff. It will help you to see if you are having enough conversations, spending enough time, and showing enough interest to share in your child’s life each day. A parent needs to know his or her child better than anyone else in the world!

1. If your child could paint his room any color, what would it be?
2. What does your child want to be when he or she grows up?
3. Who is your child’s best friend?
4. Does your child think he or she is too big or small for his age?
5. What does your child think others think about him?
6. What does your child like best about school? Why?
7. What does your child dislike about school? Why?
8. Who outside your family has influenced your child the most?
9. Who is your child’s hero?
10. How does your child feel about you?
11. What would your child change about his family?
12. Does your child think you are fair?
13. If your child had $5 today, what would he or she buy?
14. What is your child’s favorite toy?
15. What would your child change about you?
16. If asked, “What do you do well?” what would your child say?

Find a time to sit down with your child, check your answers and see how well you did!

Helping Vulnerable Kids and Families Succeed

ALL parents need reminders from time to time on how to be the best mom or dad they can be for their kids. HealthNet’s Better Indy Babies and Healthy Families teams work with at-risk Indy parents during the critical early years of their children’s lives. They help increase parent knowledge of early childhood development, improve parenting practices, provide early detection of developmental delays and health issues, prevent child abuse and neglect and increase children’s school readiness.  Kudos to these programs for making Indy a healthier place for children!

HealthNet, Entercom Communications and Sesame Street Live have partnered for this event to promote awareness of HealthNet’s Better Indy Babies and YOU have a chance to WIN 4 tickets to the show and 4 passes to meet the characters! Click here to enter. Pass the word to your friends!

HealthNet’s Better Indy Babies (BIBs) began in 1989 to battle the infant mortality rate in Indianapolis, which was one of the worst in the country. 

Better Indy Babies is a prenatal care coordination program providing services in areas surrounding our primary health care centers. The purpose of the program is to improve the health status of women participating in HealthNet’s OB program in order to reduce infant mortality rates and the incidence of low birth weight infants.

The BIBs program performance data documents a 30% reduction in infant mortality rates, a 20% reduction in preterm deliveries, decreased neonatal intensive care use, and increased self-esteem and parenting skills.  Satisfaction surveys also verify that program participants feel positive about their prenatal experience and that barriers were reduced as a result of their participation in the program.

The Better Indy Babies program serves women in neighborhoods with high teen pregnancy rates and high crime rates.  Other contributing factors include:  increased alcohol and drug use, limited prenatal education, high rates of unwanted or unintended pregnancies, and levels of low income resulting in minimal resources for basic needs such as food and proper housing.  The majority of families served live at or near 100% of the federal poverty level.

For more information on Better Indy Babies, please visit www.betterindybabies.org.

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Share this post with your friends and family!  Win 4 tickets to Sesame Street Live: Elmo Makes Music, plus meet the characters!

Joanie realized as she was preparing for her baby shower this month that not all moms are as lucky as she is.

That set off a February collection drive  that will have all her friends and co-workers donating stuff like diapers, bottles, and other things needed for an infant’s care.

It’s all a part of a community-wide baby shower for the Better Indy Babies Pantry, which helps at-risk moms-to-be.

The BIBs Pantry, located at University Heights United Methodist Church, is a ministry sponsored by the local chapter of the United Methodist Women, with more than 20 amazing volunteers from the church family.

The BIBS Pantry provides free healthy, nutritional food and hygiene items to at-risk expectant mothers and basic care items for their newborn babies. The pantry was established in 1991 in response to the high infant mortality rate in Marion County — one of the highest in the nation at the time.

It is an ongoing challenge to keep the BIBS Pantry stocked enough to keep up with the growing needs of our community.  University Heights United Methodist Women sponsors the BIBS Pantry in cooperation with HealthNet’s Better Indy Babies/Healthy Families programs.

HealthNet’s Better Indy Babies/Healthy Families programs provide home-based services to help at-risk pregnant women and parenting families. Services include health education and referrals to community resources. The Better Indy Babies program administers the Healthy Families program, a home visitation model that encourages good parent-child interactions from birth to age three. In 2011, HealthNet had more than 13,402 visits through both programs.

Shower the Little Ones With Some Love This February!

You can help too! Consider hosting a baby shower to benefit the BIBS Pantry and Better Indy Babies/Healthy Families Programs.

Bring together your friends, co-workers or family for a baby shower – you can even play a few silly shower games, if you want! New and gently used winter clothing, baby gates, new car seats, toys, and baby food are always needed.  Click here for a detailed list of needed items. You can email info@indyhealthnet.org to arrange a pick-up or delivery time.

Help Without the Hassle

Cash donations to Better Indy Babies/Healthy Families are immediate. No boxes or bags. Skip the trip to the mall — and the silly shower games. Just donate online now.

Thank you for your support of this community collaboration between HealthNet and University Heights United Methodist Church!