Local health officials react to 1st Five grant changes

WASHINGTON — County health officials said they expected to continue six-county collaborations on a 1st Five Initiative after the state withdrew recently-awarded regional grants earlier this month. The 1st Five program aims to support health care providers in early detection and help for children with social-emotional and developmental delays.

Washington County Public Health Director Emily Tokheim said the abrupt change was unfortunate.

“The state has decided to pull all awards for that contract, and they will no longer be awarding that per the applications that we wrote … submitted, and we were awarded,” she said at a meeting in late May. “They are within every right to do that. That certainly did not make us happy, we were very disappointed to receive that news.”

Tokheim said the state-level department had set some expectations for future grant funding, though nothing is set in stone yet.

“I did receive an email sharing what they can share with us, as far as their intent going forward,” she said. “All they said was their best anticipation at this point is that we can expect the (current) contract to be extended six months to Dec. 31.”

State health officials did not give local health agencies a reason for the change of plans, according to Tokheim.

“We don’t know the purpose for this,” she said. “We’ve certainly heard some rumors, but none of them that have been confirmed, so we are patiently waiting and hoping that we get a better answer than just, ‘We’re not doing that anymore,’ but we will wait and see if we get that.”

A spokesperson from the Iowa Department of Public Health declined a request for an interview, but emailed a statement saying, “The Department has cancelled the 1st Five RFP due to issues related to scoring of the applications.”

More precise possible explanations abound, but are entirely speculative. Board of Health members and department officials at the meeting said the holdup may stem from an in-progress merger between IDPH and the Iowa Department of Human Services, or issues in the rollout of collaborative service areas the grant application was based on.

“I had heard conversations prior to knowing that they were going to cancel this contract, but again, nothing has been substantiated,” Tokheim said. “We’re hoping we get some sort of answer, that’s kind of where we’re at right now.”

In any case, Tokheim said she didn’t expect a complete overhaul of the 1st Five program.

“We aren’t hearing that they’re going to replace it at this point, all that they’re telling us is they’re going to extend it,” she said. “The expectation, based on all of the work that we’ve done with (other counties) so far is that services will be maintained in all of our counties, services will not change.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com