Welcome to the first edition of our monthly H.E.R.E.inWA Newsletter. Our goal is to give you a regular reminder of the resources that are available on our Web site, update you about new entries and demonstrate some features you may not be aware of.

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H.E.R.EinWA Team

In early June we moved the H.E.R.E.inWA web site from our longtime consultant to the Department of Health. This was a big undertaking and we appreciate your patience as we continue to work out a few glitches. We plan to keep our same home-page address through the end of the year at least. But you will need to change any bookmarks you had for specific pages on our Web site from before June 5. Please let us know through e-mail or the Feedback form if you notice any problems. We'd like to acknowledge the hard work of the DOH Web staff and also Mona Guarino at Design21.com who helped us develop H.E.R.E.inWA over the last four years.

As part of our ongoing evaluation, the H.E.R.E.inWA team will be holding three focus groups in October to learn more about the professional needs of local health staff who conduct health education activities in Washington. We are particularly interested in finding out:

• how you do research and develop projects
• how you improve your professional skills
• what resources would be most helpful to enhance your work
• your reaction to some additions we are considering for the H.E.R.E.inWA web site

The focus groups are planned in Yakima on October 11, Federal Way on October 24, and Spokane on October 31. We are looking for participants who carry out health education and health promotion functions in their local agencies or who are trained health educators. We will provide lunch and reimburse travel expenses. For more information contact Don Martin at 360-236-3707 don.martin@doh.wa.gov.

What's New

Note: These projects and materials were added May-July 2000.
Community Projects

• Fire Safety Education Program ~ Ferry, Stevens and Pend Oreille
  Northeast Tri-County Health District, the Washington State Patrol, Boise Cascade, and ALCOA joined forces to reduce traffic collisions on a 13-mile stretch of highway with a high incidence of collisions.
  
• From Me To You HIV/AIDS Prevention for Women ~ Pierce County
  An HIV-prevention program that promotes safer sex practices in women and teens who are at risk.
  
• Gay City Health Project ~ Seattle-King County
  A nonprofit, community-based HIV prevention organization in Seattle.
  
• Queer Night at the Health Department ~ Bremerton-Kitsap County
  A clinic night open to interested lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender county residents for confidential STD, HIV and/or pap testing.
  
• Recall Round-Up ~ Statewide
  A national campaign to alert the public to products sold by thrift and consignment stores that have been recalled, banned or do not meet current safety standards.
  
• School Playground Safety Program ~ Whatcom County
  Consultation to schools and community groups on the installation and maintenance of safe playground equipment.
  
• SmileSavers ~ Statewide
  Provides free sealants and preventive dental care to low-income school children in 18 Washington counties, most of which are designated as high need rural areas.
  
• TB Translation Project ~ Clark and Skamania
  Southwest Washington Health District took a valuable set of videos on tuberculosis and translated them into Bosnian, Russian, and Vietnamese for clients who would not otherwise have easy access to this information.
  
• The Realities of Parenting Program ~ Thurston County
  Teaches the financial, emotional and physical realities of pregnancy and parenting for high-risk teenage girls at the Thurston County Juvenile Detention Center.
  
• Washington Dental Service Smilemobile ~ Statewide
  Offers a full range of dental treatments for children from low-income families who are at or below the age of 13.
  

Materials Exchange

• 2000 Washington State Directory of Summer Camps and Programs for Children with Special Needs ~ Children's Hospital
  
• Drinking Water Safety - Information for Health Care Providers ~ Washington State Department of Health
  
• E. Coli ~ Skagit County
  
• Facts About Meth Lab Clean Up ~ Benton & Franklin Counties
  
• Facts About Mold in the Home ~ Benton & Franklin Counties
  
• Food Safety at Potluck Meals ~ Benton & Franklin Counties
  
• Linkages Newsletter & Statewide Calendar ~ Children's Hospital
  
• Patient & Family Education Materials Development Kit ~ Children's Hospital
  
• Salmonella Infection ~ Skagit County
  
• Shigella ~ Skagit County
  
• Starting Point: Resources for Children with Special Health Care Needs in Washington~ Children's Hospital

Teach a Feature
Searching  H.E.R.E. Community Projects

Would you like to find an example of a community project on gardening without pesticides, or maybe on HIV prevention or adolescent health? There are three ways you can search the community projects database. They take you from general to very specific:

The most frequently requested topic area lets you choose from topic headings similar to the Healthy People 2010 listings. Each project gets assigned to only one heading, so this is a broad search tool. You will get a complete list of entries under each heading. This is also the place where you can scroll through all of the entries in the database.

On the Community Projects page, you will see a text box. You can type in any words you'd like to search for. This tool looks at the text of the project descriptions. The list of projects you get will contain the words you typed. This is a fast search, but not necessarily complete.

The most specific way to search is by key words. Each project is assigned several appropriate key words from a list of about 300 words. When you use this option you will see the entire list of key words. Each word will have the number of entries beside it in parentheses. By clicking on a key word you want, you will get a list of all the entries that have been assigned that key word. This is a little slower, but much more precise. You can also look at all the entries for a single county.

Do you have a community project to add? Submission Form -- Community Projects
Do you have health education materials to add? Submission Form -- Materials Exchange
Would you like to be added to H.E.R.E. in WA and receive this newsletter monthly?
Add Yourself to the H.E.R.E. Rolodex

H.E.R.E.inWA Team
Office of Health Promotion
Washington State Department of Health
PO Box 47833
Olympia, WA 98504-7833
(360) 236-3736
here@doh.wa.gov