The Center’s largest project is the Gadsden Woman to Woman Federal Healthy Start Project. The project was one of the original Federal Healthy Start Projects in the nation awarded in 1997. The Center for Health Equity took over administration of the project in 2000. Over the years the project has evolved, making changes and improvements based on studies of effectiveness as well as new research literature in the area of Maternal and Child Health and the risk factors found to impact poor health and birth outcomes.
The core services provided by the Gadsden Woman to Woman Project include case management, health and wellness education, behavioral health, outreach, and with an additional emphasis, on the prenatal period and on pre-interconception care (periods before and between pregnancy), screening and assessments for children (0-5 years old), peer support and counseling for adolescents and teens. Services are driven based on results of assessments including bio-psychosocial, depression screening, Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE), and other assessments.
In order to enhance these core services to meet best practice standards, the Center consistently looks for other sources of funding to supplement Center Programs such as the Gadsden Woman to Woman Project, Brother to Brother, and CHE Behavioral Health.
Beyond the Federal Healthy Start Project (Gadsden Woman to Woman), the Center has also been involved in projects that were statewide initiatives including the Florida Outreach Childbirth Education Program, a program development and evaluation project funded through the Centers for Disease Control to the Florida Department of Health Chronic Disease Program, and a breastfeeding project funded through NACCHO.
The Gadsden Woman to Woman Program offers preconception (before pregnancy), prenatal and interconception (between pregnancy) services to women 14-44 years old, their children, and families. Services include case management, counseling, parenting, physical health assessment, nutritional education, support groups, self-development and exercise health education services.
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The Brother to Brother Program offers Federal Healthy Start Program males and other males from the community who are 14-44 years old support groups, counseling, academic and career readiness, parenting, self-development services, nutritional education and exercise health education services.
Behavioral Health services include individual counseling, families therapy, couples counseling, infant mental health counseling, Child-Parent Psychotherapy, grief and loss counseling, perinatal and postpartum depression, parenting education, parenting evaluation, anger management-assessments-&-counseling, domestic violence counseling, biopsychosocial assessments, in-depth clinical assessments, attachment/bonding assessments, pre-/post-placement adoptions competency counseling, therapeutic supervised visitation, communication delay screening, and autism spectrum services including intervention services, positive behavior support, screening and referral.
