BY TIM BONFIELD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Six grants totaling more than $756,000 will provide nurses to eight schools, promote a new program for uninsured children, and support mental health services for the deaf, among other programs.
The grants were the latest of more than $5 million awarded this year by the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, a new charity armed with a $260 million endowment that was created by last year's sale of ChoiceCare to Humana Inc.
The foundation plans to give about $13 million a year to groups in 20 area counties that focus on four main topics: primary care for the poor, school-based health education, substance abuse and mental illness.
The projects receiving the latest grants are:
$239,066 to the Franciscan Health System of the Ohio Valley to provide two family nurse practitioners who will serve seven elementary schools and one junior high in the Southwest Ohio School District.
$177,387 to the Urban League of Greater Cincinnati to start an AIDS prevention program at Bloom Middle School.
$134,355 to Children's Defense Fund to co-sponsor Hamilton County's efforts to enroll nearly 23,000 uninsured children in the federal Children's Health Insurance Program.
$123,000 to NORCEN Behavioral Health Systems to provide counseling, psychotherapy and diagnostic testing services for the deaf and hearing-impaired.
$57,515 to the FreeStore - FoodBank to study long-term, hard-to-serve welfare recipients to determine whether they have unmet health problems preventing them from entering the work force.
$25,000 to the Cincinnati Recreation Commission Foundation to produce 50,000 referral guides of local health and social services for youths and young adults.
