Stronger Together - Connecting Residents to Helpful Resources

Local service providers, such as food shelves and health clinics, know where help is needed in our community. We work closely with them — sometimes we provide a service and other times they take the lead.

That plays out daily with the county’s community health workers. They are a resource for community organizations that help residents with basic health needs, others who need food assistance and more.

It’s important to represent the people we serve. Community health workers speak a total of six languages other than English. That makes it easier to serve all residents, and people are more comfortable getting help.

Community health workers visit food shelves, attend vaccine clinics and offer family home visits. They also partner with local police departments, including West St. Paul, to help with car seat safety checks and provide health information at community events.

In the last six months of 2023 alone, we worked with more than 10 local organizations to reach residents in need. Over the past five years, community health workers helped 366 people get basic health, nutrition or safety resources. And since 2020, they have met with 211 people at 25 of the county’s free vaccine clinics.

Our public health staff also partner with others. During the pandemic, we enhanced our coordination with local schools. We’ve maintained that close partnership by assigning a school health specialist to focus on public health needs in our schools. That includes coordinating hearing and vision clinics, sharing health news with school nurses through a newsletter sent to 525 people and hosting a monthly school health call open to about 145 nurses in 120 public, private and charter schools throughout Dakota County.

We have also provided technical assistance to schools as they worked to meet a new state requirement to keep doses of naloxone — medication that can reverse an opioid overdose — in each school building. Partnering with schools improves the health of our children.

www.dakotacounty.us, search health services