Spotlight

Making healthy choices isn’t always as easy as it sounds. It’s even harder if your food choices are limited.  

Thousands of children in Wake County do not have access to foods they need to thrive and maintain a healthy weight. These children have food insecurities and do not know when or how they will get their next meal. Consequently, they are likely to both miss meals and fill up on more readily available low-cost, high-calorie foods with poor nutritional value.

When it comes to your health, relationships play a big role. You want to be heard, and you want to trust that your needs are understood. Communication is a top priority, and a smile can go a long way!  

Wake Health Services learned exactly that, and so much more, when the organization took the time to step back, assess and improve its capacity to meet the needs of the Spanish-speaking community. What began as an initiative to provide bilingual support grew into so much more as the organization embraced opportunities to improve in other areas along the way.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is the second most common developmental disability; however, there are often mixed messages about autism which can lead to confusion for families and the medical community. ASD refers to a group of developmental disabilities that affect a person’s ability to understand what they see, hear and otherwise sense. At times, the varied nature of ASD contributes to a lack of understanding and results in barriers to care and a failure to diagnose medical problems.

Positive Leadership & Youth Development
In recent months, the John Rex Endowment was privileged to attend graduation ceremonies for participants from Planned Parenthood's Teens Taking Action, El Pueblo's Líderes de Salud and Wake County 4-H Extension's PODER. These local groups have a lot to celebrate!

Imagine being a child and hearing words such as gastroenterologist, pulmonologist or endocrinologist. Worse yet, imagine being a parent facing a wait of weeks or months for your child to see a pediatric subspecialist.

A shortage of pediatric subspecialists is a nationwide problem. North Carolina ranks particularly low, with 75 percent fewer pediatric subspecialists per child than the national average. As a result, children with specialized health needs struggle to get appointments and frequently have to travel great distances for care.

Award-Winning ENERGIZE! Program Turns Kids into Champions
Through ENERGIZE!, a 12-week, family-based program for children ages 6 to 18 with pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes, kids learn how to build lifelong, healthy attitudes about food and fitness. For kids like Ashle and Alex, who weren't actively involved in athletics at the time of pre-diabetes diagnosis, the program has strong record of success.