Joined CHF’s National Network: April 1991
Home Institution/Affiliation: Parkland Health and Hospital System, Dallas, TX
Medical Director: Susan Heinlen Spalding, MD
Sampling of Services:
CHF's Special Initiatives:
Areas Served: Urban communities in the city of Dallas and surrounding Dallas County.
The Dallas Children's Health Project (DCHP) provides services to homeless children and adolescents in the city of Dallas, as well as permanently-housed, low birth-weight infants in sections of surrounding Dallas County.
The need among these populations is great. Both have significant levels of developmental delay or school failure; nutritional problems including anemia and obesity; minor acute illnesses; and family dysfunctions such as domestic violence, child abuse and neglect and mental illness. Twenty-five percent of all children in the city of Dallas live below the poverty line. Seventeen percent of the children in Dallas county are uninsured.
DCHP meets these challenges by providing comprehensive primary care to the children and families of Dallas at homeless shelters, transitional apartments, elementary schools and a childcare center for homeless children. Additionally, to address the high rate of infants born in Dallas with low birth-weight, the project holds weekly low birth-weight clinics in Dallas County and schedules home visits following hospital discharge.
