Laredo ministry seeks to offer children in need a healthy start

Posted: 12/14/07

Laredo ministry seeks to offer
children in need a healthy start

By Haley Smith

Baptist Child & Family Services

LAREDO—Imagine going 24 hours without electricity or running water. Consider what it would mean to someone in an emergency if they had to walk blocks to meet an ambulance because it would not cross the county line into their neighborhood.

Cristina De Bosquez doesn’t have to imagine. She works daily with people who live in exactly those situations.

De Bosquez directs Healthy Start Laredo, a Baptist Child & Family Services program designed to provide comprehensive medical care for women either pregnant or raising a child under the age of 2. The program’s goals are to reduce infant mortality, prevent child abuse and assist families in meeting basic health needs.

Healthy Start Laredo has reduced the number of infant deaths in Laredo over the past six years during the life of the program, reaching more than 300 families—about 1,500 individuals—per year, 150 pregnant women and 150 families with children under age 2.

It also serves another 500 non-clients through educational services and workshops.

Healthy Start partners with Laredo’s Gateway Clinic to provide medical services for families who cannot afford health care—particularly pregnant women and families with young children.

The majority of Healthy Start clients live in small colonias—often 30 miles outside the Laredo city limits. The colonias generally lack running water, and residents often are isolated because they do not have a phone or car.

Baptist Child & Family Services recruits clients and provides transportation to a mobile medical unit, parked at a different location daily throughout the five colonias served.

“We have one and only one focus—to protect babies, born and unborn,” De Bos-quez said.

A Baptist Child & Family Services case manager follows each family until the child turns 2, developing nurturing plans and teaching parenting skills, while working to empower clients by helping them achieve independence.

“Our program is a strength-based program and equips these families with skills to make it on their own,” De Bosquez noted. “We give our clients hope and permission to dream and set goals, which is priceless.”

Healthy Start Laredo not only helps people who specifically request assistance, but also goes into areas where people who need the services live. 

Client Amelia Perez and her family live in an empty horse stall where her husband works, and they are exposed daily to quarantined horses and dangerous pesticides. Without transportation, she sometimes has to pay a neighbor $30 per trip to take her to get groceries. This family is only one of 15 families originally discovered living on the property who now are served by Healthy Start Laredo.

“The program requires aggressive outreach,” Gateway nurse practitioner Patricia Tijerina said. “People need to know that these services are available to them. Awareness is an ongoing need.”

“It’s a very good program that has helped my family a lot in the process of delivering our baby,” client Carmen Sanchez said, after completing her two-week check up after a C-section. “It’s very convenient, and I’m grateful that I didn’t have to travel far for my appointments.”

Although the Healthy Start Laredo staff may never know the full impact made in the lives of clients, the staff believes in the work they do and can see God’s hand in it, De Bosquez noted.

“It’s not about the pay or the hours we work,” she explained. “Working here is a humbling experience that allows us to go home daily with renewed and appreciative attitudes.

“We are a faith-based organization and simply live out our faith by meeting our clients’ needs. We demonstrate by example, so when asked, we tell our clients that we’re ‘doing God’s good work.’”