The Scott County Hometown Health Coalition was awarded the Blossoming Community recognition at the Annual Arkansas Coalition for Obesity Prevention (ArCOP) meeting of members on Monday, January 27 in Conway, AR. Mayor David Millard, City Clerk and Treasurer Sherry Johnston, and Scott County Health Unit Administrator Darla Mortimore accepted the award on behalf of the Coalition. Mortimore and Johnston serve as co-chairs of the Coalition.
The Arkansas Department of Health “Hometown Health Improvement” and ArCOP, “Growing Healthy Communities” announced the results at the annual meeting. There were 94 applications statewide and only 28 recognized communities. This year, the applicants were carefully selected and scored based on pre-determined criteria. The Scott County Hometown Health Coalition was not only recognized for their achievements, but also moved up a category of recognition.
The mission of the Scott County Hometown Health Coalition is to bring health improvements to the community through prevention and education while addressing these concerns in a holistic approach that engages the economic health as well.
Scott County Hometown Health Coalition will receive incentives throughout the year for achieving GHC recognition. This may include but not limited to marketing/media packages, technical assistance, access to trainings, and access to funding resources.
Goals of the Growing Healthy Community are:
- Encourage smaller Growing Healthy communitiesto come together at the county level to complete this application
- To strengthen and expand partnerships and collaborations in a larger geographic area
- Expand policy, systems and environmental (PSE) change to larger organizational and community-wide efforts
- Grow efforts to engage hard-to-reach and disadvantaged populations
- Achieve and maintain buy-in from elected officials and other high level organizations leaders
