KAYSVILLE — Coming to the Heritage Park splash pad Friday, Nichole Monk didn't expect to run into her the Davis County Health Department, but she's glad she did.
"I'm thankful they're here," Monk explained. "I was looking for parenting classes because I'm raising my granddaughter, and they offer free parenting classes at the Davis Behavioral Health."
It's a resource Monk wasn't previously aware of, as she works to raise her 3-year-old granddaughter Azalea, something that came rather unexpectedly in this stage in life.
"It came on kind of sudden. I had heart surgery. I was out of work," Monk said. "It's been a lot after raising the kids and then coming back to the grandkids. It's a whole different life. Way different."
Nursing staff with Davis County's Maternal and Child Health Bureau shared face-painting and games for the kids, while sharing information for parents at the park Friday.
"I was kind of in the same boat too at some point when I needed help, and I had no idea what was out there," Haley Bemis, with the Connection Visit Program, recalled.
"It's really cool just kind of being in this space now, being able to help families realize what there is out there to help them with and help them realize what we can help them with so they don't have to figure it out and navigate these things on their own," Bemis said.
Health department employees were on hand to answer questions about various services from the Women, Infants and Children program, like free early childhood screenings, immunizations, and maternal and child welfare.
Sabrina Harman, nursing director at the Davis County Health Department, said it's important to make as many people aware of the programs as possible, as they work to prove the programs are important and ask for funding in the coming year.
"When these programs are utilized, it actually benefits the funding," Harman said. "If we can show the need, then the people who are in charge of funding or policy really take that into account that there are a lot of people that we're able to help and that do need help in our county."
Information on available services for families in Davis County can be found at daviscountyutah.gov/health/health-services/women-infants-children-2-0.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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