Correspondence - Item 29 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Araiza, Fatima From:John Paul Bryan <jpbryan@momsorangecounty.org> Sent:Tuesday, May 07, 2024 10:44 AM To:eComment Cc:Vega, Brenda Subject:Item #29 - City Council Meeting 5-7-24 Attention: This email originated from outside of City of Santa Ana. Use caution when opening attachments or links. Good morning Friends at the City of Santa Ana, Late last year, MOMS Orange County had the opportunity to submit a Community Development Block Grant application for consideration to the City of Santa Ana. We were recently invited to speak on behalf of our application during the public comment portion of today's city council meeting. If, given the many high priority items that the council must attend to, there is not time for us to speak this evening, we respectfully request that the following comments be forwarded to the council in support of MOMS' application under item #29: Good evening Mayor and Council Members, First and foremost, we, the staff, Board, and leadership of MOMS extend our thanks for your consideration of the application before you and for the many years of partnership we've had working together to give Santa Ana moms and babies the healthiest starts possible. Since 1992, it has been our pleasure to work with thousands of local moms, dads, and their little ones, giving them the knowledge, skills, screenings, and support they need to thrive. We have submitted an application to continue this storied partnership into the next Fiscal Year, so that our Maternal Child Health Coordination program can continue to support moms with flexible in-home and virtual visits to ensure that each participant is equipped with the resources and information they need beginning in pregnancy and lasting through their baby's first year of life. Each year, MOMS serves approximately 750 Santa Ana mothers and infants across roughly 2,500 in- home visits. Although our clients face many barriers to care and even more to establishing proof of income and legal residency, we are able to obtain qualifying documentation from roughly 150 low- income participants each year which, for intents of measuring CDBG progress, is our proposed service goal. Our services begin in pregnancy when a participant reaches out to us either by phone, online, or by way of referral from their doctor or community health clinic. She is then paired with a Maternal Child Health Worker (MCHW) operating under RN supervision from MOMS who meets with her on a monthly basis, developing a birth plan, conducting mental health screenings, and providing bilingual resource navigation (available in Spanish and Vietnamese) to ensure that expecting moms receive proper early prenatal care. Where our nurses identify potential areas of concern, they work with the family and MCHW to identify resources to resolve or mitigate risks, including, where need be, referrals to on-site licensed mental health counseling courtesy of MOMS. After the baby arrives, we collect data on birth outcomes and continue working with mom and baby alike to promote healthy development, support maternal health, and measure progress toward critical milestones including physical and psychosocial development as well as healthcare access such as completion of immunizations and well-baby visits. In 2023, we were proud to find that of the babies 1