FOR IMMEDIATE Release: April 15, 2016

DSC_1690ROSE Community Transformer Training Aims to Reduce Racial Disparities in Breastfeeding in Sarasota County

Additional efforts to train Care Providers and Provide Drop-In Support

The Healthy Start Coalition of Sarasota County, Inc. in partnership with Sarasota Memorial Hospital and the Florida Department of Health in Sarasota, was awarded a grant from the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) to reduce the growing breastfeeding disparity between African-Americans and Caucasians in our county.

Although the overall breastfeeding initiation rates are 86.4% in the county, only 66.5% of black residents initiate breastfeeding, with rates significantly dropping at 3 months.  The over-arching goal of the project is to increase local evidence-based breastfeeding support by: providing up-to-date training for care providers who already interfacing with our target population, implementing an innovative, culturally relevant peer support program for African-American women, providing drop-in breastfeeding support to targeted, underserved communities, and developing consistent messaging and materials for all partnering agencies.

As part of this project, Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere (ROSE), a non-profit organization from Atlanta, Georgia, will provide specialized training for women who have breastfed so they can support women in their own communities.

This two-day training will be held at the Sarasota Memorial Waldemere Plaza on Thursday, April 28th and Friday, April 29th, from 9am – 3:30pm. Lunch is provided, along with a stipend of $100 for those attending both days.

After this training, women can provide breastfeeding support to moms in their community informally or through hosting breastfeeding clubs or at one of the drop-in breastfeeding support groups that the grant is funding. These support groups will be held in Newtown, North Port, and at the Health Department located at 2200 Ringling Boulevard in Sarasota. While the first two are in the early planning stages, the Health Department’s drop-in support is set to begin May 7th and run from 10am to 12pm at the Ringling Health Center Location.

These paid opportunities will provide increased access to free breastfeeding support in areas that need additional services. This additional support, along with other activities through the grant, will increase breastfeeding rates and decrease the gap between populations.