RUMFORD – The River Valley Healthy Communities Coalition (RVHCC) recently received a grant for $25,000 from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine New England Region.

The award will enable the coalition to develop a strong public health information outreach program. The program will build on efforts to create a comprehensive system of delivering prevention and public health messages and will increase community access to reliable health information resources across the River Valley area.

The project will be accomplished through a community collaboration between local schools, libraries, adult education and health care.

RVHCC will begin the project with a community health information needs survey, then conduct region wide training to increase the capacity of public librarians, grades kindergarten to 12 school health coordinators and adult educators to promote accurate and easy-to-use health information resources such as MedlinePlus (www.medlineplus.gov) and improve information seeking skills among the community members they serve.

The coalition will issue five mini-grants to support teachers and librarians at the two middle schools, two high schools and one adult education program to implement and evaluate the health information literacy lessons and one-on-one sessions using NLM online health information resources.

The coalition will document the experiences of the pilot sites and publish a source book that includes the piloted lessons and describes successful approaches used by the teachers and librarians and their strategies for addressing challenges.

For more information, contact RVHCC at 364-7408.