Causes: Health, Public Health, Reproductive Health Care, Reproductive Rights

Mission: MCHC was created to ensure that all children in Chester County, PA have the opportunity to start healthy, stay healthy and succeed in school. Our flagship program, Healthy Start, works with low-income pregnant and parenting women to help them access the health care, health insurance, and health education they need. Healthy Start offers home visiting to participants and also has five sites countywide. MCHC's Kennett Square Family Center works with families in southern Chester County with children 0-5 to help prepare them with the developmental screening and skills they will need to succeed in kindergarten.

Target demographics: Low-income families across Chester County, PA.

Direct beneficiaries per year: 2,000

Programs: Family benefits - mchc coordinates a countywide health insurance enrollment initiative for women, children and families which includes community outreach and education about subsidized health insurance, enrollment assistance into medicaid and chip (children's health insurance program), and advocacy to improve access to health insurance. The program expands throughout the delaware valley with funding from the u. S. Department of health and human services, center for medicare and medicaid.

healthy start - part of a national effort in 100 communities, improves birth outcomes for at-risk, low-income pregnant women. Healthy start's bilingual, bicultural family health advocates provide an array of evidence-informed outreach and support services including countywide prenatal and postpartum home visiting, case management, depression screening, health education, health insurance enrollment, medical interpreting, and transportation linkages. There are five community based offices in chester county located in oxford, kennett square, west chester, coatesville and phoenixville. In addition, mchc provides prenatal and parenting classes in english and in spanish including comenzando bien (healthy beginning), a curriculum developed by the march of dimes and the national alliance for hispanic health. The goal of the program is to provide the culturally and linguistically tailored prenatal and parenting education that women of color have been denied because of language, financial, and other barriers.

family center - the family center in kennett square helps families in southern chester county with young children between the ages of two and five years with early childhood development and school readiness. The program uses the nationally-recognized, evidence-based "parents as teachers" (pat) program, which includes personal in-home visits, parent support groups, resource referrals, health insurance enrollment, child development, and parenting education.

[1] training, education and other services provide spanish language interpreter trainings to other local health and human services organizations with the goal of enabling them to provide high quality, culturally competent services to clients with limited english proficiency. Mchc offers cultural competency trainings for providers to increase access to health services and to increase understanding on issues such as african american women's health and latino cultural beliefs and values. Mchc provides prenatal and parenting classes in english and spanish, including comenzando bien (healthy beginning), the county's only spanish prenatal education classes.