Florida Keys Healthy Start Coalition

The Healthy Start program continued to provide services to over 75% of all new and growing families in Monroe County who welcomed children this year. Individual services are tailored to a familys needs and include care coordination, referrals, fatherhood support and interconceptional care. Healthy Start serves as our overall assessment resource and referral system. Access to services begins with a prenatal screen completed at a womans first obstetrical doctors appointment. Infants are also screened at birth to identify possible factors that could impact a babys health or development in the first year of life.

Keys to Supporting Families addresses economic challenges, food security, and social determinants of health by providing essential baby care supplies such as diapers, strollers, formula, baby food, clothing, and much more. Through the provision of costly yet vital baby supplies, families utilize finite resources to cover other costs and basic needs, especially housing, utilities, and food. During this fiscal year, we supported over 800 families in the Keys. In partnership with local food pantries and distribution sites, FKHSC is the go-to agency for formula and baby food, providing nutritional support to families in the Keys.

Our Healthy Babies program grew this year adding a prenatal care partnership with our local FQHC and local Womens Health Center to address prenatal care. We also moved our labor doula program out of the pilot phase and implemented it County-wide. Healthy Babies addresses the health and well-being of parents and babies during pregnancy and the first few months of life. This program provides access to prenatal medical care, mental health support, transportation assistance, breastfeeding support and access to labor and postpartum doulas for Keys families.

Keys to Kids Safety helps parents and caregivers to provide a safe environment to raise their children through the provision of education, support, and safety supplies. We address vehicle and bike safety, safe sleep practices, home environment and poison safety. Our volunteer technicians and instructor properly installed over 250 car seats throughout the Florida Keys. In addition, to meet the needs of families who use public transportation, we provided over 120 stroller car seat combos. Over 100 families were able to provide their baby with a safe sleeping environment with a pack n play.

Our Keys to Growing Kids program facilitates family health, well-being, and education for parents and our tiniest citizens during their first few years of life. Tot Time and Wiggles & Giggles groups address early childhood development and support parents/caregivers with the goal of children being ready and thriving by the time they enter kindergarten. We facilitated over 120 early childhood education groups, helping ensure that 1,300+ children throughout the Keys achieved or exceeded developmental milestones.

Our Keys to Hope program remains in the pilot phase and currently provides bereavement support to parents and family members that have experienced the loss of a pregnancy, baby, or child. It provides education and support to medical professionals that work with the families along with support groups for mothers and families that experienced loss. As families discover this program the demand is growing. We are discovering that this is something rarely addressed and the need is larger than we anticipated.

Our Keys to Hope program remains in the pilot phase and currently provides bereavement support to parents and family members that have experienced the loss of a pregnancy, baby, or child. It provides education and support to medical professionals that work with the families along with support groups for mothers and families that experienced loss. As families discover this program the demand is growing. We are discovering that this is something rarely addressed and the need is larger than we anticipated.