HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0138.002 2008-2010
Family Support Services of West Hawaii
75-127 Lunapule Rd., #11
Kailua-Kona, HI 96740
Phone: (808) 326-7778 Fax: (808) 326-4063
Email: kids@fsswh.org
To: J Yoshimoto, Chair
Members of the Hawaii County Council
Date of Meeting: Thursday, February 19, 2009
Subject: In support of Hawaii County Council's Resolution to Urge the Governor
of the State of Hawai'i and the State Legislature to Continue Funding and
Restore Full Funding for the Hawai'i Healthy Start Program
Good afternoon Chairman Yoshimoto and members of the Hawaii County Council. Thank you
for this opportunity to share my support for the Council's Resolution to Urge the Governor and
the Legislature to continue funding for the Hawai'i Healthy Start Program.
My name is JoAnn Bishop Freed and I am the Executive Director of Family Support Services of
West Hawaii, a community-based non-profit organization on the island of Hawaii whose mission
is "to support families and communities in providing love and care for our children." Family
Support Services has been a provider of Healthy Start services to the community since 1985.
A little more than twenty-five years ago, a distraught young mother left her newborn out on the
lava fields of Ka'u because she felt she had no other option. While the baby died there alone, for
the past 25 years, we have held that infant in our heads and our hearts, trying to understand what
happened and trying to make sure that it would never happen to another infant or mother again.
In partnership with the State Department of Health, members of communities across the state
created the public health initiative known as Hawaii's Healthy Start Program. For the past
twenty-five years, every family that has given birth in the hospitals of Hawaii has had the
opportunity to meet with a Healthy Start representative and to enroll in Healthy Start Home
Visiting services if they qualified. Last year alone, more than 15,000 children were afforded this
safety net at the time of their birth, and about 1,500 of those families enrolled in Healthy Start
Home Visiting.
On the island of Hawaii, 2,000 families with newborns were given a "Welcome Baby" basket
thanks to Healthy Start and the island-wide "Hugs Not Drugs" campaign because substance
abuse as an adult and adverse experiences as a child have been irrefutably linked. Each basket
contained the message that all babies on the island were being born into communities that care
about them. Close to 500 Big Island infants living in families challenged by poverty, limited
educational and vocational opportunities, social, cultural or linguistic isolation, substance abuse
and mental illness, were provided weekly home visits by a Healthy Start Home Visitor. Over
4,500 children were supported by Healthy Start Home Visitors in communities across the state,
with the end result of Hawaii being found one of the safest places to be born in the country.
Because of its success, Hawaii's Healthy Start program gained international recognition as a
model prevention and early intervention program. It has been replicated all across the mainland
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U.S. under the name Healthy Families America and flourishes in Canada and the Philippines.
Legislation entitled Education Begins At Home is making its way through our federal House of
Representatives and Senate that will provide funding to states in order to support home visiting.
The choice to eliminate Hawaii's Healthy Start Program threatens to not only extinguish the
flame lit by the spirit of that little one who lay abandoned and alone because there was no safety
net to prevent his death; it also threatens the state's capacity to receive future federal funding to
support children and families. At a cost of less than $500 per baby born each year in Hawaii, we
can continue to insure that this tragedy never happens to another child.
We sincerely thank you for proposing this Resolution to the Governor and the Legislature. The
prevention of life-long consequences from adverse childhood experiences lies in our ability to
provide support to our families. We must have the ability to provide preventive services to
children right from the start as well as the capacity to provide more intensive intervention
services to infants and toddlers who have been brought to the attention of Hawaii's Child
Welfare system in order to help them heal and prevent further consequences to their
development. Your support of this pioneering model speaks volumes about your caring and
compassion for our island's ohana.
I am proud to be peaking to you today on behalf of an agency that has been able to bring this
opportunity to hundreds of families each year on the island of Hawaii. It is my sincere hope that
future generations on our island and in our state will continue to benefit from today's Healthy
Start program, and I thank you so much for your support.
Thank you very much.
JOAnn Bishop Freed
Kailua-Kona, HI