Coordinating Council Coordinating in Darlington County

"Stronger together" is the them of the Darlington County Services Forum 2010 being held at the Lakeview Baptist Church in Hartsville on October 14.

The event, which was kicked off by Senator Gerald Malloy and Representative Jay Lucas, had nearly 40 agencies meeting together and giving very short blurbs about their mission and service opportunities. The Forum is a chance for the various groups, whose primary mission is serving people, to learn how all might work together even better to improve services, get a bigger return on funds invested and make even more of a difference in building community. The Darlington County Coordinating Council meetings on a monthly basis to ensure more frequent contact but they hold an annual forum to help each other get a strong feel for the bigger picture.

One of the key events at this forum will be a presentation about the state budget and state funding estimates for the next fiscal year. That is probably not going to be an optimistic picture as predictions are that the state budget may be even tighter next year than it is right now. That is one more reason the coordinating council is playing such an important role. While some people aren't keen on government, I wondered as I sat listening to presentations, what the people served by these agencies would do if these agencies did not exist. For me, that was a scary thought!

Coordinating Council is important for collaboration, communication, cooperation

The Darlington County Coordinating Council is a loose organization of representatives from many of the social service type of agencies that serve the people of Darlington County. The Council meets monthly in Hartsville or Darlington. And, very importantly, the group has a web presence at darcocc.org.

Last week, July 9, the group had its meeting in Hartsville with about 17 people in attendance -- a relatively light crowd but some pretty heavy discussion. One of the key issues that arose was what appears to be an increasing incidence of teenage pregnancy in the Pee Dee. Kathy J. W. Smith of DHEC was doing the monthly organization presentation and she distributed some 2006 statistics on Teen Pregnancy. That handout started some intense discussion around the table and was one of the issues used as the reason for a need of more collaboration among agencies and service providers. The statistics on the page were provisional data for 2006 but they said that Darlington County has a 41.4 teen pregnancy rate, that is calculated per 1000 female population for the specific age group. For comparison, the overall South Carolina rate is 29.6.

SERVICES SUMMIT is September 10, 2009
One of the major announcements at this meeting was that the Services Summit for the county will be at Lakeview Baptist Church Fellowship Hall on September 10. This is an opportunity for service providers to get to know even more about each other's services and provide opportunities for people to meet one another to make coordination of service activities more realistic.

(Interest of full disclosure -- The Byerly Foundation has provided a multi-year grant for the Darlington County Coordinating Council to lay a solid foundation for improved communication among the various service providers. I am the executive director of The Foundation.)

REPRESENTATIVE JAY LUCAS TO COORDINATE
Representative Jay Lucas is going to be the Legislative Delegation's connection to the Coordinating Council. Many of the issues that arise from social service agencies are issues that are governed by state law and all of the issues affect people. In communities where a state legislative delegation takes an active interest in what is happening with social service providers it seems the social services are both more effective and more efficient. In fact, this group had a great deal of impetus a few years ago from State Senator Gerald Malloy, who gave one of the key notes at the first Summit.

NEXT MEETING
The next meeting of the Darlington County Coordinating Council is August 13, 2009 at the McLeod Medical Center - Resource Center in Darlington. Anyone wanting more information on this group can go to the web site, call Kathy Baxley, executive director of the Darlington County Free Medical Clinic, Dr. Nick Nicholson at the Darlington County Community Action Agency or Todd Shifflett at Care South.

A day or two ago this blog mentioned the idea of social capital. Darlington County does have a lot of people working in various areas to help improve the quality of life at all levels. One of the often unknown resources that has been developed is called the Darlington County Coordinating Council, whose chair this year is Todd Shifflet. The council has a meeting coming up next week in Darlington and one of its major functions is to provide a continuing platform for organized communication among human service agencies and groups so that maximum use can be made of the resources available. The council's web site does a good job of pointing out the scope of services available in our community. It would be worth a visit!