Introduction and Welcome

Also here this morning to provide welcome is Sally Fogerty. And Sally is the Assistant Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Bureau of Family and Community Health. Sally is the current President of the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs and has a long and rich history in maternal and child health. Like many of you, has the responsibility in her state of Massachusetts of administering many more programs than just the Title V Block Grant. I think that that’s one thing that when people come in, and they’re new to the field, or even some of the federal arts, some of our federal partners, they don’t realize how broad and rich the maternal and child health is. That it’s more than administering just one grant in the state and I know that I’m not telling any of you anything when I say that, that most of the states’ programs are involved not only in children’s special needs in maternal and child health, but administering programs such as WIC, Family Planning, Part C of IDEA, and many programs out there. And Sally is no exception to that. She’s also had the opportunity for awhile in the 80’s of working with the elderly, so I guess she’s worked with both ends of the continuum and I’m sure that there are many commonalities between some of the age groups that we’re involved in. Sally is a nurse, receiving her Bachelor’s in Nursing degree from the University of Wisconsin and also has a Master’s in Public Administration from Cambridge College. So please join me in welcoming Sally Fogerty.

Sally Fogerty: Thank you, Cassie. I didn’t quite realize she was going to read all that, or say all that, so thank you very much. I’m delighted to be here today to welcome you on behalf of AMCHP, but most important to welcome you on behalf of all of the state Title V Directors, Maternal and Child Health Directors, and Children with Special Health Care Needs Directors. And to say thank you for our federal partners in really working with us so that we can move forward on the important agendas that I think we have set for ourselves. As Cassie alluded to, I think that all of us at the state level are faced with the challenge of where do we go next? What are we going to be doing in the next year, maybe. Certainly the next five years, but I’m not sure many of us can get beyond that next year period of time. But how can we most effectively use the Title V MCH block grant to provide the type of leadership that is going to be so critical if we’re not to lose ground in what we have accomplished over the last 20, 30, 40 and 50 years as the many changes that are occurring within each one of our states happen time after time. I think as I began to look at some of the articles that are coming out that talk about where’s SCHP going, states that are putting caps on SCHP, states that are looking at restricting other services so important to the families who serve. I think that for many of us, it’s easy to focus on the children. It’s easy to say we’re focusing on the families, but if I look at what’s happening in Massachusetts, it’s those families that are being hit from multiple ways and multiple sides, whether it’s a decrease in mental health services, whether it’s a decrease in substance abuse services, whether it’s an increase in unemployment, an increase in insurance costs. So I think that coming from a state in which we were very proud to say that almost all of our children certainly 95%, maybe even above that, were insured two years ago, we’re down to closer 90% being insured. If we look at our families, we have growing numbers of adults who are not being insured. They could no either longer afford the premiums, or the programs that we had on the public side are being capped for them. So I think that as we move forward, and as we continue to have a strong partnership with our federal partners, as we continue to form partnerships between ourselves, I think we need to make sure that we are able to assess the change that are occurring and to maintain as much as possible, all of the gains that we made. I think that by linking research to practice, we have one of the best chances of doing that because we need to find out what the researchers are telling us. We need to know what works, what doesn’t work, so that we can direct our funds and direct our services and programs to what will make a difference. We need to make, perhaps, some difficult decisions. Those are not easy on the state level. But I think that by all working together, we’re going to be able to accomplish what was promised in Title V in 1935. And I think that we’ll be able to assure, by using our dollars to the best, in the best way possible, that we will be able to have an infrastructure within each state which will assure that mothers, kids, and families are not forgotten. And that they get the maximum amount of services possible during this time. I’m really excited as I look over the agenda to see that we’re going to be addressing such issues as obesity. We’re going to be going back to look at pre-maturity. Where are we? What can we do? How can we assure that each child reaches their maximum potential while we’re assuring that each child goes into the healthiest adult possible. I was interested in reading a study just a short while ago, that claimed that one-third of the children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes. And I would challenge each of us to think about what we could do to prevent an epidemic of diabetes, of asthma, of obesity. Because if we really look at where we’re going, they all have some of the same underlying factors. And it means that we really never forget that we’re about prevention. And we always keep foremost in our minds what we need to do, not just as individual states, but in partnership between ourselves as states and in partnership with our federal partners to create the infrastructure and the foundation for healthy children and families. I know that we’re going to have an exciting couple of days. It’s a time to share with each other. It’s a time for us to be able to sit back, to think, to leave behind those problems at home, and to really get as much as we can from this meeting and to be able to take home one or two things that we can do to really make a difference. And I would challenge us to do that. Maybe we can take 10 or 15 things, but I would challenge us to take home at least two things. Just two things that we can figure out how to implement and put in place in order to make things better for the populations we’re so committed to. Thank you and I look forward to an exciting day and to our continued partnership with MCHB, and I’ve noticed HRSA’s gotten bigger, so I will actually say with HRSA and with the rest of HSS. Thank you HRSA.