2001 County Achievement Award Winners

• Fatherhood Program of Carlton County
  Carlton County
  In January 2001, the Carlton County Child Support Unit implemented the Fatherhood Program of Carlton County to encourage the positive involvement of men in the lives of children.  The program is a collaborative effort with 24 entities that include other public agencies, county departments, private businesses and private citizens.  The Carlton County Child Support Unit, along with these partners, provided family law clinics, parenting classes, celebration events and support groups.  This program has been well attended and has received much support from the men participating, the media and the general public.

 

• Family/School Support Worker Program
  Carlton County
  The Family School Support Worker program in Carlton County is designed to reach families with children at early stages of difficulties and to provide services and/or referral to resources to ameliorate these problems.  Each year the program serves 1500-1700 children and their families and is able to reach and provide services to more needy children and families in Carlton County than traditional Child Welfare services.  Family School Support Workers provide individual counseling and support to children and parents, parenting education, couples counseling, and school support.  They assist families in accessing financial, housing, therapy, and emergency resources.  They make referrals to community programs and serve as a liaison and advocate to secure and develop needed services for children and families.  The Family School Support Worker program has helped to reduce the out-of-home placement rates and the size of Child Protection caseloads in Carlton County.

 

• Tuberculosis Clinic
  Olmsted County
  A unique tuberculosis clinic was opened in April 2001 to serve the residents of Olmsted County.  In response to several years of increasing tuberculosis cases, which reached a high of 19 active cases in 1999, Olmsted County Public Health Services with support from the Olmsted County Board of Commissioners developed a partnership with the Mayo Clinic to create a full service tuberculosis clinic with the Public Health Clinic.  The new clinic centralized medical and public health expertise in one location, reducing the logistical complexities of serving patients and enhancing opportunities for medical and public health interventions.  Clients no longer have to go from building to building all over the community to receive TB services.  The TB clinic provides skin tests for TB, x-rays, sputum collection, physical examinations, treatment and follow-up into the community to locate contacts or assure treatment and appointment compliance.  The unique aspect of this Clinic is the way both agencies contributed resources to assure its continued success.  Olmsted County Public Health Services provided three negative pressure examination rooms, office space, nursing case management, skin testing, community outreach, medication delivery, x-ray taking, sputum collection, administrative services and interpreter services.  The Mayo Clinic provided physician services two half days a week, radiology services, laboratory services, and technician training; they donated a digital x-ray machine and maintain it, paid construction costs to accommodate the x-ray machine, provided a sputum collection hood and provided other TB clinic equipment.  The Clinic accepts referrals from all providers in Olmsted County.  We believe that the public-private partnership that resulted in the establishment of this Clinic is a concept that is transferable to other counties and will likely be repeated in Olmsted County.

 

• Murphy’s Landing Historical Living Museum Project
  Scott County
  Responding to an educational need for youth with barriers in traditional learning areas, specifically history and social studies, Scott County Employment and Training and the Carver-Scott Educational Cooperative worked with an interdisciplinary team to design a service learning project at Murphy’s landing Living Historical Museum.  The project combined experiential learning components with classroom work to provide youth with paid work under the Scott County summer youth Employment program and classroom credit through their home school districts.  The context of the learning was focused on youth succeeding.  Participants improved their educational skills and job readiness through project planning and research assisted by professional staff at the historical site.  They showed significant improvement in math, English, social studies and history, and increased the likelihood of successful completion of their formal schooling.  In addition they experienced significant increases in self-esteem and their ability to function effectively in collaborative work setting.  The community benefited by the work accomplished at this popular historical/recreational site that is part of the park system.