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New center planned for Central Point kids Health care, counseling, education to be offered to families By SUSAN JAY CENTRAL POINT -- This city may be booming with new buildings and businesses, but teachers see more and more children struggling with poverty, violence, alcohol and drugs. Help for those children could be moving closer and could be available downtown for the first time. The Jackson County Public Health Advisory Board meets Monday to vote on a lease for a small office at 415 E. Pine St. The space would act as the hub for several government and non-profit agencies offering a variety of services, including health care, counseling and education. Professionals at School District 6, Jackson County Public Health and many other social service agencies plan to work together at the new site to help families receive services such as emergency food, children's programs, juvenile programs and parent education. "We're trying to get a toehold in Central Point just like we did in White City," said Hank Collins, county health and human services director. The agency has had tremendous success helping families with services at the Upper Rogue Family Center in White City, he said. "It's as much people liking to get services close to home as (it is) the way we provide them, so people aren't shopping all over the city of Medford to get what they need," Collins said. The variety of services could be limited because of the small office space, he said, but would include family planning, prenatal care and immunizations. Christine Reising, the school district's project coordinator, is working on the center along with a team of people representing other programs. "Teachers are faced every day with children that want to learn, but because their home situation is unsettled," she said, the children find it difficult to feel confident at school. Of the 40 factors identified as essential for kids to succeed, one of them is availability of services in their communities. The Central Point center is similar to sites in White City, West Medford and Ashland, where welfare, children's services and public health programs are offered together. Having satellite offices in different regions of a county fits the state's goal of delivering human services more efficiently and effectively by bringing them under one roof and closer to the people needing them. The school district -- which includes Gold Hill and Sams Valley -- and Jackson County would share the lease payment. The school district will use money from a state grant designated for social services, not academic programs. This partnership isn't new. The groups have been working together the past few years to bring services closer to schoolchildren and families, Reising said. The goal of all these services is to help families stay on their feet and become self sufficient. Poverty, violence and substance abuse are some of the factors causing instability in families, she said. Nearly half the district's elementary school students qualify for free and reduced-price lunches. Administrators saw a higher incidence of violence at the high school and middle school in school year 1998-99, and in 1998, Central Point police and Gold Hill police arrested or cited 241 juveniles who were referred to the juvenile department. "As our class sizes increase and as we discover more and more pockets of poverty within our school district, teachers find that there are more and more students who have special needs and that a lot of these needs go beyond the needs of the child but are family needs," Reising said. She sees the center gradually adding services as agency representatives see the need. Initially they plan to have a community health nurse, a representative from the juvenile department to hold assessments and follow up appointments, a family advocate from Community Works to provide youth counseling and parent education, and ACCESS Inc. to help homeless families with activities for their children. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA