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"The power of one is to do something ... anything."
That was the theme more than 50 community leaders were sent away with Wednesday from the annual Kosciusko Community Hospital's 1999 Community Needs Assessment retreat, conducted at the KCH Health and Wellness Center Wednesday.
The half-day retreat focused on the health needs of Kosciusko County residents, with health referring to more than mere medical issues, but to include spiritual, economic and social well-being.
"We're really a community of contradictions," said Linde Howell, president of HealthQuest Inc. the consulting firm hired to conduct the needs assessment. "We're a very wealthy county, but we have a number of very poor. We have many resources, but we have many needs that are unmet."
Howell said the goal of the assessment is not just to acquire information on the state of the community's health, but to establish priorities in determining services and programs in the future.
To do that, she said, the community's culture has to be altered to where those health goals are widely shared.
"A healthy community is about changing the culture. Commitment with the community is critical," she said. "If you want to change the community it's going to take a commitment to that initiative - not just by the people in this room, but from the community as a whole."
Howell said the process needs to investigate what resources are here and what resources are needed; what works and what doesn't. To answer those questions, service providers and patrons need to be consulted and their responses reconciled; that the assessment relies on valid and verifiable data; and that the components evaluated represent a global definition of health - physical, spiritual, educational, economic and social components to individual and community life.
With these guidelines, Howell divided the participants into smaller work groups of five to seven people. She asked them to inventory programs and services that are in place to address the expanded definition of health, and then to suggest new programs that would fill in whatever gaps exist.
The conclusion of the session was devoted to each group of participants presenting the lists of resources and suggesting new programs.
The top five priorities for 1999 were determined after all groups presented the results of their discussions and those suggestions were voted on by the entire retreat. Those priorities included:
• Programs stressing personal/community values; i.e., integrity, honesty, responsibility, citizenship, etc.
• Expansion/improvement of transportation within the county, to include more public transportation, development of biking/hiking trails and the establishment of a consolidated, countywide EMS system.
• More women's health and family education programs, to include greater availability of cancer screening services, prenatal classes and immunization services.
• More accessible and affordable psychological, emotional and substance abuse counseling.
• Greater availability of affordable for child care.
Howell said the results of the retreat will be tabulated and presented at a public meeting, at 5 p.m. Oct. 20 in the old courtroom of the Kosciusko County Courthouse.
