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Phoebe group recognized for immunization awareness

• A Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital effort to promote health in schools gets an award for its work with immunization.

Susan McCord

ALBANY — A program that helped increase the average immunization rate among Dougherty County schools from 52 percent to 88.6 percent in just a year was recognized earlier this year with an award from Emory Vaccine Center.

The Walt Orenstein Champions for Immunizations Award recognizes “some of the brightest people and organizations that value human life by promoting and providing immunizations,” Orenstein said in a Sept. 5 letter to five Georgia award recipients, including Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital’s “Network of Trust.”

Phoebe’s Network of Trust is a wide-reaching organization that provides a variety of services to school systems in Dougherty, Lee, Worth, Terrell and Calhoun counties, said Network of Trust Director Angie Barber.

School nurses in all Dougherty schools, grades K-12, are paid for with funds from Network of Trust, Dougherty Schools Finance Director Robert Lloyd said.

Network of Trust audited Dougherty schools in 2005 and discovered the average immunization rate was 52 percent, according to a release issued Monday. “By the following year, through the program’s efforts, the rate rose to 88.6 percent,” it said.

Efforts to increase the immunization rate in Dougherty schools involved Network of Care’s close work with the Dougherty health Department to ensure staff were trained on using the Georgia Immunization Registry, or GRITS, Barber said.

Network of Trust is perhaps best known for its work with teen parents and parents-to-be in public schools.

In Dougherty, Lee, Worth, Terrell and Calhoun counties, Network of Trust offers “teen educator” counseling to young parents, encouraging them to stay in school, Barber said.

Monroe High School Principal Dolores Spears said she’d worked closely with Network of Trust at Monroe and Albany high schools.

“I think they make it very, very clear to the parents and to the young ladies that they need to have their children immunized,” Spears said.

Network of Trust provides a school nurse who works half the school day at Monroe High and meets weekly with a Network of Trust parent facilitator at the school, Spears said.

Through Network of Trust classes, young mothers can learn more about properly caring for their child, including the services that are available to them, Spears said.

“We kind of put the word out there,” said Spears. “The ladies have a way of telling on each other.”

While not celebrating pregnancy, the program emphasizes graduation and good child care, she said.

“They really work with the younger mothers and let them know the necessity of taking care of the babies from the beginning,” Spears said.

Network of Trust also sponsors a healthy lifestyles program called “Ready, Set, Go” which works individually with schools to help reduce the risk of children becoming unhealthy or obese, often during Physical Education classes, Barber said.

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