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San Jose
Mercury News COUNTY
PROGRAMS WIN PASADENA, CALIF.--The Santa Clara County Children's Health Initiative (CHI), one of 11 programs recognized around the state for challenging the status quo and developing creative solutions to problems, received the California State Association of Counties Challenge Award. There were more than 100 submissions for this top award. The Challenge Award recognizes CHI for providing comprehensive medical insurance to 45,000 previously uninsured children in Santa Clara County. "Children are our most important asset," said Supervisor Liz Kniss, County of Santa Clara Board of Supervisors. "45,000 healthy kids means a healthy county and few accomplishments can mean more." The Santa Clara County Children's Health Initiative ensures that all low-income children in the county, regardless of immigration status, have health insurance and access to health care services. The program was developed to fill in the gaps between federal and state-sponsored health insurance programs, which despite heavy usage in the county still left an estimated 71,000 children without health care. To alleviate the problem, the County invested tobacco settlement funds, foundation support, tobacco taxes and other funding to cover health care insurance premiums for its uninsured children. For a small sliding scale premium ranging from $0 to $18 a month, all low-income children up to age 19 receive comprehensive medical, dental, vision and mental health benefits. As a part of the Children’s Health Initiative, the County engages in public-private partnerships to offer more services, coordinate fundraising activities and to engage in public outreach efforts in different languages. The County also retooled the intake screen process for the state, federal and local programs, to make it easier for families to apply. Prospective applicants may call a toll-free hotline 1-888-CHI-5222 to apply for the program. "Santa Clara County is proud to accept this award and extends this challenge to other counties in hopes that every child will have access to quality comprehensive health care," said Margo Maida, Director of Community Outreach Services, Santa Clara Valley Health and Hospital System. The County also received two Merit Awards. One is for the
Artemis
Program, a comprehensive, collaborative substance abuse program
for incarcerated women who are pregnant, have young children
and/or may lose custody of child as a result of substance of
abuse.
The other Merit Award goes to California's First Community Four other innovative programs in the County were also
recognized:
The Santa Clara County Active Shooter Protocol and Training
Curriculum developed under the leadership of the Sheriff's
Office; the
Educational Rights Project, developed by the Office of the
County
Counsel, that works to ensure that the educational needs of
children
in Santa Clara County's juvenile court system are met; Juvenile
Delinquency Domestic Violence/Family Violence Court, a
groundbreaking program started in 1999 to deal with young
abusers
charged with family violence - a collaborative program among
Juvenile Probation Court, District Attorney's Office and the
Public
Defender's Office; and Fresh Lifelines for Youth, a program that "The County of Santa Clara has been a trendsetter in
innovation and
local government and we've been recognized for that today," said
Supervisor James T. Beall, Jr., County of Santa Clara Board of
Supervisors, after receiving the award.
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