Special Healthcare Enrollment Period for Hurricane Victims



Did you suffer property damage or home loss from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, or Maria? You can partake in a special enrollment period for those in Medicare or who need healthcare, thanks to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). This gives hurricane victims the chance to change their Medicare health plans and get health coverage. That includes Texas (38.42% Latino population), Louisiana (4.72%), Florida (23.72%), Georgia (9.15%), South Carolina (5.32%), Puerto Rico (99%), and the U.S. Virgin Islands (17.13%). “The lives of millions of Americans have been disrupted and impacted in some way by recent hurricanes,” said CMS leader Seema Verma in a news release. “Setting up special enrollment periods gives … the opportunity to access health coverage during this ...

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2017 Community Change Micro Grants Opportunity



Many families aren't as active as they would like to be because they lack safe places to walk, bike and play. In fact, the U.S. is failing five of nine factors that reflect walking and walkable communities. Latinos in particular face barriers to walk, which negatively impacts physical and mental health, as well as economic prosperity. Are you interested in helping to make walking more commonplace for families in your community? Micro Grants; America Walks is hosting a round of micro grants for up to $1500 to fund or start smaller-scale, low-cost projects and programs. The goal is to increase the prevalence of walking, expand the diversity of people and organizations working to advance walkability, and help to make walking safer, easier, and more fun for all community ...

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#SaludTues Tweetchat 10/10: Latino Kids & Bullying


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Did you know 17.2% of Latino students report being bullied at school? Latino and children who are bullied report frequent worries, sadness, and fearfulness. Race-related bullying has negative emotional and physical health effects. Latino parents even list bullying as their No. 1 child health concern, according to the recent National Poll on Children’s Health. How can we help? Let’s use #SaludTues on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2017, to tweet how to stop bullying, create innovative bullying prevention programs in schools and communities, build better minds for Latino kids, and celebrate National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month in October! WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: Latino Kids and the Crisis of Bullying TIME/DATE: 1-2 p.m. ET (Noon-1 p.m. CT), Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2017 ...

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Rocio Muñoz Embeds School Health Navigators for Latino Parents



Latinos face many barriers to health care, including language differences; complex and confusing documents and processes; lack of knowledge of available services; unreliable transportation; and fear of using government services. One way to increase health equity among Latinos is to remove these barriers. Rocio Muñoz, community health navigator at Benton County Health Department (BCHD), in partnership with the school district, worked to embed bilingual, bicultural health navigators into elementary schools in Corvallis, Ore. (7.4% Latino), to address these identified barriers. The partnership resulted in a model where health navigators are placed in schools to coordinate with students, parents and teachers regarding students’ health records in order to boost access to health ...

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Health Worker Alma Galvez Helps Families ‘Rethink’ Their Sugary Drink



Alma Galvez was sick of seeing a growing number of overweight Latino child patients at her clinic in Minneapolis, Minn. (10.5% Latino population). In her job as a community health worker for St. Mary’s Health Clinics in Minnesota, Galvez was able to pinpoint a big culprit—sugary drinks. Galvez and Shannon Gavin, the organization’s coordinator of family health programs, wanted to reduce sugary drink consumption among Latino child patient and families. So they jumped head-first at the chance to work with state health officials to create a bilingual, culturally relevant campaign to urge Latino families to rethink their drink. Sugar’s Stranglehold on Latino Health Galvez and Gavin are big players in how St Mary’s Health Clinics serves its large minority and ...

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New Science Standards Aim to Boost Latinos’ Interest, Test Scores



California is implementing new standards for teaching science to spark Latinos and African American grade-school students' interest and boost test scores, EdSource reports. The new standards have more hands-on science projects, updated scientific and technological research, feature different fields of science, with less rote memorization. They even recently released a parent's guide in Spanish to explain the changes. The new standards, called the Next Generation Science Standards, offer guidelines for teachers on how to reach students who are English language learners, come from economically disadvantaged homes, are racial/ethnic minorities, or who are otherwise from demographic groups “underrepresented in the science fields.” The hope is that in California, where about ...

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Get Water Bottle Fountains at Your School!


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Classic water fountains aren't always accessible or safe for kids. Water Bottle Fountains are filtered water dispensers for easily filling and refilling water bottles. This gives kids much-needed access to safe drinking water throughout the school day. They help keep kids hydrated while saving families money from buying bottled water. They also help the environment by reducing waste. Salud America! wants to help you get Water Bottle Fountains at your school with our custom-for-you Water Bottle Fountain Action Pack with Coaching! Request an Action Pack to get (at no charge to you): Customized, click-to-send emails, graphics and resources One-on-one support from an Action Pack Coach Ads on Facebook Promotion of your efforts to 100,000+ change-makers 25 Salud ...

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New Tool Focuses Equity Lens on Local Policies for Latinos



Hey, city leader... Are your policies and programs equitable for Latinos, Blacks, and other minorities? Fortunately, a new tool helps local governments add an "equity lens" to involve the community and create policies and programs that account for racial/ethnic minorities. The tool, Racial Equity: Getting to Results from the Government Alliance on Race and Equality, enhances the Results-Based Accountability (RBA) methodology to empower policymakers to make “good decisions and advance racial equity.” “Currently across the country, regardless of region, racial inequities exist across every indicator for success—including health, criminal justice, education, jobs, housing, and beyond,” according to the new tool. “We know these inequities are incongruent with our ...

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Free Training Helps Early Childcare Providers Grow Healthy Kids



Dr. Kathy Fletcher knows the first three years of a child’s life are critical for preparing kids to grow and mature into healthy and productive students and adults. But what if early childcare providers don’t know how to make it happen? Fletcher, President and CEO of Voices for Children of San Antonio, worried that these providers—who only need a high-school education to be on the job—are eager to help children success, but don’t always have the tools to give local kids the appropriate developmental care and services they need during their formative years to promote healthy development. At least one quarter of children birth to five are in some form of organized out-of-home child care. Investing in professional development for early childhood providers can reduce the ...

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