photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

The Community Health Facility, 200 Maine St. is pictured Tuesday, February 25, 2025.

It’s been a year since Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health launched the county’s five-year roadmap to improve community health, and local health leaders will soon share details on how it’s worked out so far.

On Tuesday, Oct. 21, the public is invited to hear a one-year update from facilitators of the Community Health Improvement Plan, or CHIP, about the progress that it’s made on its five focus areas: access to health services, poverty reduction, behavioral health, birth outcomes, food security and housing.

As the Journal-World reported, the plan was put together after the county’s community health assessment in 2023, which revealed several problems: 48.8% of renters in the county are cost-burdened; overdose deaths are increasing; Hispanic, multiracial and Native American populations are more likely to be uninsured; Black babies are more likely to be born small for their gestational age than white babies; only 29% of residents live within a mile of healthy food options compared to 43.7% statewide; and 1 in 10 children live in poverty.

The anti-poverty area in the CHIP targets single-female-headed households living below what’s called the ALICE threshold. ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed and refers to people making the minimum income needed to cover basic needs like food and housing.

The anti-poverty work group has hosted ‘data walks’ throughout Douglas County to highlight that at least 80% of families living in poverty are headed by single mothers. To address this, the county is currently exploring the idea of developing a guaranteed income pilot program, a strategy highlighted in the CHIP.

The County Commission previously approved outside grant funds to explore a guaranteed income pilot for low-income single mothers in May. The funding will support the county’s effort to identify opportunities to help their economic well-being. County staff has said the county doesn’t plan to use tax money or the grant to implement the program.

In addition, during the county’s budget deliberations for 2026, county commissioners approved two funding requests directly related to goals established in the anti-poverty area of the CHIP.

One request, for $62,500, was to fund pre-apprenticeship programming at the Dwayne Peaslee Technical Training Center for 25 Douglas County high school students. One of the CHIP’s anti-poverty goals is to increase the number of students in career and technical education from 150 to 400 by 2029, and the request said the pre-apprenticeship programs would help get the county closer to that goal and would open new postsecondary education and employment pathways for students.

The other request was for $100,000, which would be a one-time contribution to a communitywide child care scholarship fund. The fund would provide financial assistance to help low- or moderate-income families with children under 6 years of age and parents in the labor force afford child care.

Douglas County commissioners are expected to hear about both of those initiatives during their business meeting next Wednesday.

The city and county’s plan to end chronic homelessness, ‘A Place for Everyone’ also plays a critical role in the community health plan. Both plans have the goal of creating a system that achieves “functional zero” homelessness, which would mean that housing is attainable and affordable and homelessness is a rare occurrence.

One of the goals outlined in the CHIP and the ‘A Place for Everyone’ plan was to launch a real-time dashboard featuring homelessness and housing data specific to Douglas County. That dashboard launched in May.

The data for the dashboard came from the Homeless Management Information System, or HMIS, and the Coordinated Entry System, or CES. HMIS is a database that collects information on those facing homelessness, while CES is a process within it that helps connect individuals to housing and services. The CHIP has a separate goal of increasing participation in both of these systems by 20%.

There are also efforts being made to implement Zero Suicide, a framework for helping health care and behavioral health organizations prevent suicide and respond with compassion, in all Douglas County health partners. Local health leaders said suicide ranks eighth among causes of death in Douglas County for all ages and is the second-leading cause of death for Douglas County residents ages 15 to 44.

Another goal outlined in the CHIP is to increase the number of people utilizing myStrength to 12,000 users. “myStrength” is the former name of a free online mental health resource that Douglas County offers for its residents, and it has recently rebranded as Teladoc Health.

The event highlighting the first year of the plan will be from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 21 at the Community Health Facility, 200 Maine St., in the second floor meeting room. People can RSVP for the event by completing a survey.