SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : School Gets $50,000 Healthy Start Grant

San Juan Elementary School has been awarded a $50,000 Healthy Start grant from the state to design a program that will link needy children with the health and social services they need to learn effectively.

Principal Michael Hoy said the school hopes to have a Healthy Start program next school year that will offer referrals and support services to students and their parents on or near campus. The program would bring together educators, county and city government, nonprofit organizations, businesses and others to help students and their parents.

Next year, the school will also be eligible to apply for up to $400,000 in state grants to operate the Healthy Start program.

The Healthy Start grant is the first awarded in the Capistrano Unified School District.

Hoy said many of the 1,200 students at the school need help and will benefit from the program.

“With the cost of health care services being what they are and the cost of prescription drugs being what they are, it sometimes comes down to the choice of food and shelter over medical treatment,” Hoy said.

School and district officials will continue to work closely with community and county agencies to develop the program, Hoy added.

“We’ve already started working with health care professionals in the community to come in and start providing services at the school,” Hoy said. “This just extends those efforts.”

School officials say Healthy Start was a major part of Gov. Pete Wilson’s 1991 “preventive government” initiatives designed to improve prevention and intervention programs for children and their families.