In the U.S. today, people spend close to 90% of their time indoors. National Healthy Homes Month (NHHM), created by HUD’s Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes (OLHCHH), is an outreach campaign designed to help people connect the dots between their health and their home. This year’s overarching theme "Heathy Housing for All", recognizes that a healthy home is important to homeowners, renters, older persons, children, and others regardless of race, income, education, or social status. National Healthy Homes Month focuses on the importance of home assessments, and the impact awareness can have on your health; and to empower people to make change in order to create the healthiest home possible for themselves and their family.

Currently, millions of U.S. homes have moderate to severe physical housing problems, including dilapidated structure; roofing problems; heating, plumbing, and electrical deficiencies; water leaks and intrusion; pests; damaged paint; and high radon gas levels. These conditions are associated with a wide range of health issues, including unintentional injuries, respiratory illnesses like asthma and radon-induced lung cancer, and lead poisoning.  The health and economic burdens from preventable hazards associated within home are considerable, and cost billions of dollars.

National Healthy Homes Month (NHHM) was established to focus national attention on ways to keep people of all ages safe and healthy in their home. It is aimed at boosting awareness and understanding of what federal and local resources are available. The events planned throughout the month will serve as a public communications campaign to promote awareness and advocacy, encourage local events, and provide resources and support to drive families to take action. 

The OLHCHH developed a 2020 National Healthy Homes Month Digital Resource Toolkit; which contains many online, digital resources and materials, to assist with building awareness and implementation at the local level. Visit our website to download the toolkit. 

Love146 Not a #Number is a national program affiliated with the Children's Coalition.

These days, everyone’s taking serious steps to keep you safe from getting (or spreading) this crazy new virus, and you’re not even really supposed to leave your house. So you’re spending a lot more time online: hanging out with friends, listening to music, watching videos, gaming, even doing a little schoolwork, waiting for all this to blow over. Just like in real life, there’s good stuff and bad stuff that can happen to you on the Internet. And just like with COVID-19, you can take steps to protect yourself.

Here’s the deal: there are creeps out there who are looking to take advantage of people (and they’re spending more time online right now, too). They may pretend to be your age and act like they’re your friend. They might ask you to send pics. You might reveal something private to them — only to have them threaten to share what you told them unless you do what they want. (This happens. It’s real. It’s called “sextortion.”) They may even want to meet up with you. It could seem cool at first, and then things can turn bad. Bottom line: If you’re under 18, and someone gives you something in exchange for anything sexual, that’s trafficking. We work with a lot of youth who met their traffickers online, many on Facebook, even. 

The Hawkeye | In partner with the University of Louisiana Monroe Pharmacy, Police Department, the Children's Coalition, and the Northeast Delta Human Services Authority, a medical drop box was installed at the ULM Police Department. Students and Monroe locals are able to discard their unwanted medications - prescriptions, over-the-counter medications, and narcotics - without fear of judgement. This box is guarded at all times, but no one will be asked what they're specifically dropping off. 

​UNION PARISH, La. (KNOE) - Officials in Union and Lincoln Parishes and Louisiana Tech are looking to bring a new youth program to northeast Louisiana. Police Athletics Community Engagement (PACE) started as a free athletic league to teach kids in inner-city neighborhoods in Omaha, Neb. core values and build relationships with them.

(Source: KNOE)Louisiana Tech kinesiology dept. chair David Szymanski and other organizers are meeting with local law enforcement officers, pastors and other community leaders to introduce them to PACE.

"Everybody wants to help their children or the youth in the communities, and this program, I believe, is a way in which we can accomplish that," Szymanski says.

PACE founder Antonio Espejo with the Omaha Police Department says it's helped build relationships with his department and the community. "A lot of officers coach the teams. We also have a lot of community partners that help coach with these teams, and it's just instilling values a lot of these kids don't have," Espejo says.
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Mary Barrios says that program will be beneficial to kids here in northeast Louisiana. "It's important to not only tell kids not to do drugs, but to do other things in its place,” says Barrios, healthy living coordinator for the Children’s Coalition. “Positive, prosocial activities they can do that will keep them out of trouble and keep them from thinking about drugs."

​Officer Antonio Espejo, the founder and Executive Director of the PACE Program from Omaha, NE,  met with law enforcement, school officials, local government and community leaders to provide information about starting a similar program in Union, Lincoln and Claiborne parishes.  PACE stands for Police Athletics for Community Engagement and focuses on giving children at-risk the opportunity to play organized sports. 

​PACE's baseball program has had a minimum of 90 participants each year since 2009. The baseball program is coached and mentored by police officers. These officers volunteer their time, on and off-duty, to coach individual teams. Officers spend the entire eight week baseball program with their team instilling the ideas of sportsmanship, responsibility, and teamwork. Often times, these officers are the same police officers that patrol the participants’ neighborhoods. This allows kids to see police officers from a different perspective, and affords officers the opportunity to build a strong relationship with the families they serve. In 2019 PACE had over 700 participants in our Baseball Programming, and over 5,800 in total program participation.

U-ACT, a program of the Children's Coalition, is working with countless community partners including Dr. David Szymanski, Dept. Chair of Kinesiology at LA Tech and the District Attorney on this project.

While in Washington, D.C., U-ACT staff met with Brad Morris, Legislative Director for Congressman Mike Johnson. Mary and Jiame share with Brad the importance of the work U-ACT does in Union Parish to combat substance abuse. They shared success stories of our Student Ambassadors and their impact on the entire community. 

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​Our U-ACT staff is proudly attending SAMHSA'S 16th Prevention Day and 30th Annual National Leadership Forum. They are pictured here with staff from Northeast Delta HSA. ⁠
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The U-ACT Coalition (Union Parish Alliance for Community Transformation) works to reduce the incidence of underage drinking and other data-driven priorities in Union Parish. This not only targets substance abuse, but also aims to have an indirect positive impact on depression, suicide, teen pregnancy, school failure and violence.⁠
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U-ACT received a Drug-Free Communities (DFC) Support Program grant totaling $625,000 to prevent youth substance use, including prescription drugs, marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol.  The DFC program, created by the DFC Act of 1997 is the Nation’s leading effort to mobilize communities to prevent youth substance use and is directed by the Office of the National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). Grants are provided to community coalitions to strengthen the infrastructure among local partners to create and sustain a reduction in local youth substance use.⁠