The Florida Department of Health (Department) priorities during the application year include:

• Improve dental care access for children and pregnant women (State Performance Measure [SPM] 2: The percentage of low-income children under age 21 who access dental care).
• SPM 3: The percentage of parents who read to their young child age 0-5 years.
• Promote activities to improve the health of children and adolescents and promote participation in extracurricular and/or out-of-school activities in a safe and healthy environment (National Performance Measure 8.1: Percent of children, ages 6 through 11, who are physically active at least 60 minutes per day).

Title V Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Block Grant funding has been consistently used to establish new school-based sealant programs (S-BSPs) in Florida as well as expand existing sustainable programs to serve more children. These evidence-based programs increase access and reduce barriers to preventive dental care for low-income children in Title I schools, Early Head Start, Head Start, Early Learning Coalition centers, and Women, Infant and Child sites. During the 2021-2022 Fiscal Year (FY), the Public Health Dental Program (PHDP) provided Title V MCH Block Grant funds to ten counties to expand their programs to reach additional schools and children. These counties were Alachua, DeSoto, Highlands, Holmes, Jackson, Marion, Pinellas, St. Lucie, Volusia, and Walton. Beginning July 2022, the PHDP collected aggregate data and information on the S-BSPs number of children served, schools visited, services provided, and other programmatic information for FY 21-22. For FY 22-23, Title V MCH Block Grant funds continued to fund the expansion of existing programs. Seven programs received funding during FY 22-23. These programs were Broward, Baker, Clay, Columbia, Lake, Levy, Okaloosa, and Orange. Some programs, such as Broward, Clay, and Lake, used the funds to restart their programs after being closed. Columbia, Levy, Okaloosa, and Orange used the funds to expand their programs to increase capacity to provide additional services. Bay, Charlotte, Duval, Levy, Polk, Putnam, and Wakulla will be receiving MCH funding for FY 23-24 to provide services to pregnant women, at risk women and teen girls, and children ages 0 to five years.

Florida Department of Health received approximately 5.4 million in funding for FY 23-24 to open school-based sealant programs (S-BSP) in twenty-five counties in Florida without a Department of Health S-BSP. Funding pays for dental hygienist salaries, travel, equipment, instruments, and supplies. The PHDP is assisting county health departments in opening new S-BSPs and expanding existing programs into neighboring counties. In addition to the training provided through the Regional Sealant Workgroups, training is also provided during the Department’s Dental Director and Program Manager Statewide Performance Management meeting, monthly dental director Teams calls, and technical assistance through weekly sessions to establish these new S-BSPs.

During the coming year, grant funds will be used to support the continued development and enhancement of the PHDP’s Florida’s Linked Oral Status System (FLOSS) Database. The PHDP will continue to increase statewide data capacity and serve as the state’s S-BSP data warehouse across all agencies through the FLOSS Database. Participation in the FLOSS Database, especially for outside entities, will be encouraged through the Sealant Work Group. In addition, the PHDP will be collecting data using FLOSS for the ongoing FY 21-22 third grade oral screening project and the FY 22-23 Ninth Grade Oral Screening Project. The PHDP, in collaboration with the Florida Dental Hygienists’ Association, completed 55 screenings in elementary schools for the third-grade project and currently 22 screenings in high schools for the ninth-grade project.

Starting September 1, 2023, the PHDP will use its funding from the Health Resources Services Administration Grants to the States to Support Oral Health Workforce Activities to provide training in patient care for patients with special health care needs and restorative functions training for dental assistants and dental hygienists to place restorations under the supervision of a dentist. Both trainings will improve the dental workforce skills which in turn will increase access to care.

The Department is supporting all 67 CHDs for the Florida Healthy Babies program. The purpose of the program is to improve one of six MCH outcomes by addressing broad social, economic, cultural, and environmental factors that impact access to care. The six priority areas were identified based on the Statewide Needs Assessment, State Health Improvement Plan, Agency Strategic Plan, MCH Program National Performance Measures, and Healthy People 2030. The priority areas are:

• Infant Mortality
• Maternal Mortality 
• Dental and Oral Health 
• Prevention of Unexpected Pregnancy   
• Well Women Care 
• Access to Care

The CHDs implement the Florida Healthy Babies program by providing evidence-based services resulting from a local needs assessment, ongoing quality improvement processes, and collaboration with community partners. An example of a Florida Healthy Babies service is the Reach out and Read (ROR) program. The ROR program is an evidence-based early intervention model that encourages literacy and school readiness. ROR gives young children a foundation for success by incorporating books into pediatric care and encourages families to read aloud together. ROR medical providers encourage families to read aloud and engage with their infants, toddlers, and preschoolers every day. This program focuses on creating a reading rich environment in waiting room areas such as a child’s reading table and chairs, a bookshelf, children’s books, etc.

The Child Safety Learning Collaborative (CSLC) builds Title V capacity through technical assistance to cross-state, child safety topic teams by using data to inform decision making and applying quality improvement and innovation methods to sustainably implement and spread evidence-based strategies statewide. The Florida Suicide and Self Harm Prevention (SSHP) team concluded Cohort 3 of the Child Safety Network’s (CSN) Cohort 3 of the CSLC. During the 18-month period, the focus was youth most affected by suicidal ideation in the Volusia County school system. Originally planning to expand the multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) throughout Volusia County’s middle and high schools, the Florida SSHP team shifted to first focusing on fidelity of existing MTSS programming.  Working with the University of South Florida to obtain relevant data, and with the Volusia County School Districts to document how interventions are implemented, the Florida SSHP team seeks to identify patterns between MTSS implementation and low rates of student incident reports, including substance abuse and discipline referrals. In areas where MTSS implementation is low, the team will make recommendations and guidance to train educational personnel in order to strengthen fidelity of MTSS. While the formal relationship has concluded with the CSN, the Florida SSHP team will continue these efforts and re-engage with the national CSLC program when the next Cohort begins.

The School Health Services Program will continue to fulfill statutory, regulatory, and Department mandates to ensure the provision of school health services to children in all of Florida’s public and participating nonpublic schools. County Health Departments (CHDs), in cooperation with local schools and other partners, will work to ensure Florida’s 2.8 million pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students have access to health services that assess, protect, and promote their health and ability to learn. 

The School Health Services Program services are available to Florida public school students in all counties. This includes: nursing assessments; student health record reviews to ensure physical exam and immunization requirements meet statutory requirements; health services for chronic or complex health conditions requiring school-day management; first aid; medication administration; screening, referral and follow-up for vision, hearing, scoliosis and growth and development; preventive oral health programs; healthy lifestyle nursing interventions; emergency health services; health education classes; parent and staff consultations on student health issues; case management; and consultation for placement of students in exceptional student education programs.

In addition, the School Health Services Program received funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Crisis Response Cooperative Agreement (CoAG) grant. The grant funds nursing and mental health professional staff for use in school systems across the state. The program office developed and deployed a strategy for this project using incident command structure and was able to deploy staffing resources within 3 months. The grant was extended into the FY 23-24 school year and the program will continue to maintain and develop the strategy it is using to implement this project statewide.