Lincoln County is one of eight counties in the CSRA that recently received a three-year grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a division of the Federal Department of Health and Human Resources.

With the $595,800 in grant funds, a Rural Health Care Services Outreach Grant Program will be implemented in Lincoln, Glascock, Jenkins, McDuffie, Screven, Taliaferro, Warren, and Wilkes counties to:

Decrease the percentage of students who are using alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs.

Delay the onset of sexual activity.

Increase the percentage of students who are physically active.

Increase the percentage of students who are eating nutritious, wellbalanced meals.

The goal of the project is to respond to unmet needs that have been identified through recent needs assessment activities. These include the lack of ongoing youth-oriented health education and promotion activities, a lack of youth leadership and/or participation in local activities addressing health-related issues, and a lack of awareness, particularly among local young people, regarding healthy lifestyles and related decisions that will have lifelong health repercussions.

Among those agencies assisting in the implementation of the grant program are the Family Connection collaboratives in each of the eight counties, the Medical College of Georgia, the University of Georgia’s College of Family and Consumer Science, and the District 6 East Central Public Health Department.

As part of the program, an annual regional training summit for Youth Wellness Team members will be held each September for 160 students, ages 10 through 18. During the summit, 20 students from each county will participate in a one-day workshop designed to address such local health status indicators as substance abuse, teen pregnancy, high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, physical activity levels, and nutrition habits.

Then, when the Youth Wellness Teams return to their respective counties following the annual training summit, they will work on at least four health promotion projects per year, targeting local middle and high school students. In order to address the local health status indicators, the teams will be responsible for selecting projects that deal with substance abuse prevention, abstinence education, physical fitness and nutrition, and so forth.

The Youth Wellness Teams will also be charged with planning and developing an ongoing healthy lifestyles youth outreach campaign aimed at increasing local youth’s awareness of the importance of the issues listed above.

The project director for the eightcounty Rural Health Care Services Outreach Grant Program is Dr. Mary Ann Kotras, McDuffie County Family Connection coordinator; the assistant director and bookkeeper is Margaret Mercier, assistant finance director for Lincoln County. Moreover, the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners will serve as the fiscal agent for the project, and Carol Norris of Norris Consulting in Warner Robins will evaluate the program.

The Family Connection coordinators in each county will be responsible for the management and supervision of the project in their respective counties. They are Nancy Blount, Lincoln County; Wanda Davis, Glascock County; Gladys Evans, Warren County; Wendy Warren, Screven County; Carolyn Reynolds, Wilkes County; Jackie Butts, Taliaferro County; Julie Chance, Jenkins County; and Dr. Kotras, McDuffie County.

In addition, each county will also have a Wellness Coordinator who will be charged with supervising all of the Youth Wellness Team’s activities. The coordinator’s job is to provide advice and guidance for these young people, facilitate the local awareness campaign activities targeting the adults in the county, and collect local projectrelated evaluation data.

Melynda Poss, the school nurse at LCES, will serve as Lincoln County’s Wellness Coordinator. In her comments on the program, Nancy Blount, Lincoln County Family Connection coordinator, said, “We continually hear about health issues that impact not only adults but our young people as well. Because we live in a society where youth are not as physically active as in years past, the alarm has been sounded concerning the diagnosis of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol in children.

“We are very excited to have received this grant to address these issues in our community,” Blount continued. “We are already working with Mrs. Poss to form a Youth Wellness Team comprised of from 10 to 20 youth in grades 5 through 7. Once established, the group will then begin working to increase the number of students who eat right and exercise and to decrease the number of youth engaging in sexual activity and using alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs.”

Those who wish to become a member of the Lincoln County Youth Wellness Team or otherwise participate in the health initiative should call Lincoln County Family Connection at 359-5769 or visit the agency’s office located at 115 Main Street.