HEALTH NEWS DIGEST: Hope House grant

Hope House grant

YOUNGSTOWN

Hope House Visitation Center has received a $25,046 grant for its Family Access Visitation Program from The Youngstown Foundation to help children of 10 low-income Youngstown families have weekly supervised visitation for a year. Hope House Visitation Center is a not-for-profit facility built by the community to provide supervised visitation and the safe exchange of children between parents where families are going through issues surrounding divorce, custody, mental health, addiction, and family violence, said Carole J. Bopp, Hope House executive director.

YWCA gets grant

YOUNGSTOWN

The YWCA of Youngstown received a $32,000 grant from the Hine Memorial Fund of the Youngstown Foundation to help provide inclusive child care and summer respite services for children with diagnosed disabilities who live in Youngstown and the vicinity. During August, a four-week respite program will be provided for school- age children with disabilities that require lower ratios than the YWCA’s inclusive care program offers. For more information, call Jennie Andrews at (330) 746-6361.

Medicare dis-enroll

NEW YORK CITY

Medicare consumers enrolled in Medicare private health plans, commonly known as Medicare Advantage plans, who are dissatisfied with their choice, can dis-enroll during the Medicare Advantage Dis-enrollment Period which runs through Feb. 14. Consumers who dis-enroll from their private plan can switch only to Original Medicare—the traditional Medicare program administered by the federal government. Most people who switch to Original Medicare can also change their Medicare prescription drug coverage. The MADP replaces the Open Enrollment Period, which ran from Jan. 1 to March 31 in past years. For more information, consumers should call their local State Health Insurance Assistance Program, the number for which can be found online at www.shiptalk.org.

Survivor scholarship

CANFIELD

The American Cancer Society is offering one Youth Survivor College Scholarship of up to $1,000 to young cancer survivors in Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull counties for the 2011-2012 academic year, and another scholarship for the entire state. The application deadline is Feb. 25. To receive an application and criteria, call toll-free at (800) 227-2345 or go online at at www.cancer.org/ohioscholarship.

Health-center award

YOUNGSTOWN

Guardian Health Care Center, a long-term care facility at 1735 Belmont Ave., is scheduled to receive a Perfect Survey Award for regulatory compliance by The Ohio Academy of Nursing Homes on Friday. Guardian Health Care Center, owned and operated by Windsor House, Inc, provides skilled nursing and Alzheimer’s care. Guardian Health Care Center passed the Ohio Department of Health’s annual survey inspection with no deficiencies in regulatory compliance.

Food-bank grant

YOUNGSTOWN

Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, awarded a $10,000 ONEXONE grant to Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley to support BackPack Programs for 300 kids at three local elementary schools. The BackPack Program is a national program of Feeding America through which children receive a bag of nutritious, child-friendly food each Friday to ensure they are not going hungry over the weekends.