Mark Your Calendars: National Mobilization for Women, Children and Families on Oct. 26

Family Voices Indiana wants to alert its members to important advocacy that needs to take place Oct 26....

In the next few weeks, Congress will be making budget decisions that will affect funding for critical public health efforts for years to come. These decisions could threaten the very existence of some public health programs, and those serving women, children and families are highly vulnerable.

The Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs, the National WIC Association, and the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association invite you to join us in an unprecedented National Mobilization for Women, Children and Families on October 26. Our goal is to flood Capitol Hill with a unified message opposing MCH and women’s health program cuts.

We will be sharing this simple message: we oppose any efforts cut core programs for women, children and families, including Title V, WIC and Title X.

Title V remains the only Federal program that focuses solely on improving the health of all mothers and children.

Title V funds support programs for children with special health needs to facilitate the development of family-centered, community-based, coordinated systems of care

Title V makes a special effort to build community capacity to deliver such enabling services as care coordination, transportation, home visiting, and nutrition counsel-ing, which complement and help ensure the success of State Medicaid and SCHIP medical assistance programs.

Title V-supported programs provide gap-filling prenatal health services 2 million women and primary and preventive health care to more than 17 million children, including almost 1 million children with special health needs.

WIC provides Federal grants to States for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age five who are found to be at nutritional risk.

We will be getting additional information and will post that as soon as it becomes available. It is imperative that we protect these services for our children.