Community Health & Prevention Budget Briefing

The Division of Community Health and Prevention (DCHP) improves the health and well-being of families and individuals through partnerships and services that build community competence.

To accomplish this mission, the Division of Community Health and Prevention is structured into seven program bureaus and five geographic regions. This structure allows the Division to lead the state in improving community health and building the capacity of communities to identify and address the problems that are keeping families from reaching their full potential.

The breadth of the division's services include:

• Services to help men and women choose the number and spacing of their children.
• Services to improve the health of pregnant women, infants and new parents through outreach, case management (to ensure access to health and social services).
• Targeted initiatives to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in infant mortality.
• Home visiting to reduce the risk of child abuse and neglect.
• Nutrition education and supplemental foods for pregnant women, infants, young children and breast feeding mothers to ensure health growth and development.
• Targeted initiatives to coordinate the delivery of services to families with young children.
• Training and technical assistance to improve the health and safety of child care settings.
• Services to help children with developmental delays or disabilities achieve the greatest degree of functioning possible.
• Support for coordinated school health programs and continuing education for school health personnel.
• Structured activities during out-of-school time for youth 6 to 17, to prevent involvement in risktaking behavior and to promote and encourage academic achievement and healthy lifestyles.
• School-based health services.
• Prevention efforts that focus on the development of positive lifestyles and the reduction of substance abuse through outcome-based planning and programming.
• Services to improve the health of adolescents, including services to reduce teen pregnancy and services to help teen parents become self-sufficient.
• Diversion and intervention services for youth to stabilize families in crisis; prevent juvenile delinquency; and divert at-risk youth from involvement in the child welfare or juvenile justice systems.
• Housing and case management services for homeless youth to help them transition from homelessness to self-sufficient living and/or to reunify the youth with his/her family.
• Volunteerism and community service programs and activities that strengthen Illinois' communities.
• Comprehensive services to meet the immediate and long-term needs of victims of domestic and/or sexual violence and their children, as well as outreach and prevention education and training in the area of domestic violence.
• Distribution of supplemental commodity foods and fresh produce to low income seniors.
• Activities to prevent and control Diabetes.

FY08 Highlights

• The FY08 budget request includes an additional $7.0 million to support the Early Intervention program liability. The program expects to provide services to over 17,000 children in FY08.
• The budget reflects a $3.0M add to allow DHS to partner with the Department of Juvenile Justice to establish a program to help at-risk youth avoid the juvenile justice system.
• The Division is building a new, web-based management information system, Connections, to replace the Cornerstone system. While this will involve short-term increases in spending to develop Connections while maintaining Cornerstone, the division will realize a 40 percent or $3 million per year reduction in its system maintenance budget within three fiscal years of the modernization.
• The Division of Community Health and Prevention has been able to expand and enhance services by successfully competing for four new federal grants. 
• The Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant, awarded by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) provides $2,350,000 per year for five years. The purpose of the grant is to advance community-based programs for substance abuse prevention, and provide an opportunity for state leaders to stand with community leaders and members to remove barriers and build capacity for effective, efficient and relevant substance abuse prevention efforts.
• The Adolescent Family Life Demonstration Project Grant, awarded by HHS provides $350,000 per year for five years. The purpose of the grant is to establish innovative, comprehensive, and integrated approaches to the delivery of care services for pregnant and parenting adolescents with primary emphasis on adolescents who are under 17 years of age, and to promote abstinence from sexual relations through provision of age-appropriate education on sexuality and decision-making skills as the most effective method of preventing adolescent pregnancy and avoiding sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
• The Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP), awarded by the US Department of Education provides $3,500,000 per year for five years. The purpose of the grant is to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in post-secondary education. GEAR UP provides five-year grants to states to provide services at high-poverty middle and high schools and provides college scholarship funds to low-income students.
• The Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws Program, Rural Initiative, awarded by the US Department of Justice provides $1,050,000 over three years. The purpose of the grant is to reduce the availability of alcoholic beverages to and the consumption of alcoholic beverages by underage persons (those younger than 21 years old) in rural communities.