Medical Group Seeks a Few Good Volunteers : Social service: A cadre of health professionals is asking colleagues to give their time to help Orange County Head Start expand its services to children.

A group of health professionals has launched a unique project to find 100 colleagues each in dentistry, medicine and mental health to help the Orange County Head Start program expand its services to low-income children.

“We’re not after money, we’re after personal involvement,” said Jim Swanson, UC Irvine professor of pediatrics, psychiatry and social science, who has dubbed the effort “A Hundred Points of Light.”

Swanson, along with Doug Hasell, an assistant clinical professor of pediatrics, and dentist Richard Therrell have begun a telephone campaign to ask professionals to donate 10 hours of service a year, either in their offices or at Head Start sites.

“We think personal involvement will increase the effectiveness of the Head Start programs and foster the right attitude in the community about Head Start,” Swanson said.

The campaign marks the first time in the 25-year history of Orange County Head Start that anyone has offered to recruit help, said Marco Pena, president of the local program.

“We’re really grateful to Dr. Swanson for thinking about it and doing something,” he said. “This is the first time in Orange County anyone has got together to help us out.”

Swanson, who served on a national Head Start review panel, said he initiated the project and recruited the others after learning that Head Start now needs more volunteers because its new federal grants came with requirements for matching funds and services.

At a time when many social services are experiencing budget cuts, the federal Head Start preschool intervention program recently received a $500-million increase from Congress.

As a result, Orange County received an additional $1.6 million in federal funds for fiscal year 1990-91, boosting its budget to $8 million. Orange County Head Start, which begins the new school year today, has been able this year to expand the number of children served from 1,721 at 15 sites to 2,211 at 17 sites.

Still, Head Start now serves fewer than a quarter of the 11,762 Orange County children who are eligible. Head Start officials have stated that their goal is to reach all those children.

The program offers early childhood educational programs and health, psychological and nutrition services to 3- and 4-year-olds, 75% of whom are Latino. Parents are educated about community resources and encouraged to become involved in school decisions.

However, the large funding increases have fostered a widespread misconception that Head Start is “floating” in money, said Wade Horn, commissioner of federal programs for children, youth and families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In fact, the federal grants require that local agencies come up with 20% matching funds and larger budgets mean more matching funds.

The services of volunteers can be counted as in-kind donations to help meet that requirement.

By donating their regular hourly rate, the health-care professionals could contribute nearly $500,000 toward a needed $2 million in local funds, Swanson said.

The volunteers will be asked to fill gaps in existing health services, such as treatment for pre-existing conditions or certain operations to correct chronic ear infections.

“We want to make a list of individuals who have signed a pledge, so we can call on them when needs arise and maybe send a child to their office so they can get the same service a person in Newport Beach gets,” Swanson said.

Those interested in volunteering can call Marco Pena or Doris Wood, health services coordinator at (714) 972-8920.