By Ashley Booker 

For first-time mothers, it can be difficult to learn the best practices to raise a child, especially when resources are scarce or mothers face mental illness or depression. That’s where programs like Healthy Families Wyandotte play a vital role, according to Selia Moya, a supervisor with the program in Wyandotte County.

Healthy Families Wyandotte and similar programs in southeast Kansas provide free in-home early childhood development and education services to at-risk first-time mothers. Healthy Families Wyandotte workers visit families at their homes, helping parents understand a child’s behavior and development and making sure they are continuing baby wellness checkups, among other things.

“The best practice is to get them enrolled in these type of services from the start. For me, it’s difficult to change behaviors that already have been in practice — you find more resistance from families when you enroll them later,” Moya said, recalling her days as a home service worker.

Home visits preferably begin when a woman is pregnant, but children up to 12 weeks old can enroll and receive services until they are 3. After that, Healthy Families Wyandotte connects the family to an Early Head Start or preschool program to ensure the children and their families have continued support.

Healthy Families Wyandotte and Early Head Start are both poised to receive additional funding from two recently announced federal grants, which start this month. One grant ends after a year and the other ends in September 2017.

The $10 million in grants will allow the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to administer home visits to more than 800 low-income families with young children, up from the current total of about 170.

“It’s going to be really great for the families in Kansas, because we are going to enhance services for families,” said Aimee Rosenow, a spokeswoman for KDHE. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently announced a total of $386 million in grants for state health departments, territories and nonprofit organizations in supporting programs like Healthy Families Wyandotte.

Across the country, the home visit programs have served about 115,000 parents and children, according to HHS. About 80 percent of those families had incomes at or below 100 percent of the federal poverty level, which is about $24,000 in annual income for a family of four.

Of the $10 million for Kansas, $9 million is part of a competitive grant that already serves Montgomery, Labette and Cherokee counties in southeast Kansas and will expand to include new services for nearby Wilson and Neosho counties. In addition to receiving home visits, families will have access to programs like Parents as Teachers, Healthy Families and Early Head Start.

These Kansas counties have a larger percentage of at-risk families who can benefit from services for overall health, maternal health, mental health, substance abuse, domestic violence and education, Rosenow said.

Home services already are being provided to 171 families, so the funding will expand services to improve child and maternal outcomes by helping more than 630 new families, Rosenow said.

The grant also will provide additional training for home visitors. Programs that serve Wyandotte and Montgomery counties will share $1 million from a separate grant to enhance home visits to families for one year.

Moya said the grant money will support Wyandotte County families already in the program and identify more families in need of services. The funding is what “the community really needed,” Moya said, and will guarantee that services aren’t interrupted. Currently, Healthy Families Wyandotte has two workers providing home visits to 25 families.

The grant money will fund another home visitor, plus pay for an increase in current home visitors’ salary, continuing education and program expenses, Moya said. She said when her program helps a caregiver who helps Kansas children, the education they receive will have a ripple effect for years to come.

Ashley Booker is an intern for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Wichita, Kansas, police have arrested a trio of teens accused in a series of crimes that started with robbing a pizza deliveryman at gunpoint and ended with crashing a stolen car.

Police Lt. James Espinoza says a 15-year-old and two 14-year-olds are suspected of going after the pizza man Saturday evening.

Witnesses have connected them to a drive-by shooting in a stolen car that was crashed Monday morning.

Their names have not been released publicly, because they are juveniles.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A 44-year-old southeast Kansas man has been sentenced to eight years in prison after being convicted of manufacturing methamphetamine.

The Wichita Eagle reports that Jimmy Lee Riddle was sentenced this week after being convicted in January.

The Kansas attorney general’s office says Riddle’s conviction was the result of investigations by Baxter Springs police, the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office and the Kansas Bureau of investigation.

Authorities have said the Baxter Springs man was making the drug in 2013.

Riddle’s lawyer, Candace Gayoso, was not immediately available for comment on the sentencing.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton says she had no reason to save personal emails from her time as secretary of state.

The possible Democratic presidential candidate during a news conference on Tuesday there were more than 60,000 emails in total sent and received. About half of them were personal emails, she said.

Clinton was answering questions Tuesday for the first time about her email practices as secretary of state. She spoke following a Tuesday afternoon speech at the United Nations.

She says she went “above and beyond” what she was required to do as a State Department employee.

Her comments come after days of silence and intensifying calls from Democrats as well as Republicans to address the matter.

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BRADLEY KLAPPER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department says the full trove of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails as secretary of state will be published on a website after they are reviewed.

Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki says a review of the 55,000 pages of emails will take several months. They’ll be posted online afterward for the public to see.

Psaki also said Tuesday the reasons for any redactions will be made public, in line with Freedom of Information Act guidelines.

Those could include any passages revealing anything from trade secrets to sensitive national security information.
Clinton’s aides have said no classified material was transmitted via that private email account that she used for official business while in office.

JOHN HANNA, AP Political Writer

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas House committee has approved a plan from top Republican lawmakers to overhaul how the state distributes aid to public schools.

The House Appropriations Committee’s voice vote Tuesday sends the plan to the full House for a debate that could occur later this week.

The committee voted despite bipartisan criticism that it is moving too quickly. GOP leaders unveiled the plan only last week.

The plan jettisons the current formula and gives the state’s 286 districts “block grants” based on their current aid for two years, until the Legislature drafts a new formula.

GOP leaders contend the state’s current per-student formula doesn’t put enough money into classrooms. The state also can face unanticipated but automatic spending increases.

Many educators say the current formula is sound.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Wichita 14-year-old has been arrested after a weekend shooting that critically wounded a trucker.

Police Lt. James Espinoza says the victim, a 32-year-old from Arizona, and another man had delivered merchandise to a Wal-Mart before trying to buy drugs in a nearby parking lot.

He says the truckers met several males, and shots rang out. The Wichita Eagle reports (https://bit.ly/1AdRVpZ ) the victim, whom police haven’t identified, was hit three times, once in the face, twice in the body.

Espinoza said the wounded man remained in the hospital in very critical condition Tuesday.

Police are seeking at least one other suspect.

The teenager, whom police haven’t identified because of his age, has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and was being held in a juvenile detention center.

BUNKER HILL – Smoky Hills Public Television is bringing PBS Kids’ Sid the Science Kid to Salina. Sid will be at center court at the Central Mall on March 28 from noon until 2 p.m.

Children can meet and take pictures with Sid. There also will be fun, hands-on science experiments to engage the children.

“This event will be both entertaining and educational. We are looking forward to giving kids in the Salina area a chance to meet Sid and see how fun science can be,” said Tricia Flax, Smoky Hills Public Television event coordinator.

Along with the Central Mall, Smoky Hills Public Television has partnered with the Salina Area United Way for this event, which is free to the public.

HUTCHINSON — A longtime Hutchinson radio personality has died at the age of 64.

Robert Middleton was known to area radio listeners as “Bob Walker.”

Walker has been a part of the Eagle Communications radio family for 15 years. He has been the morning jock on My 93.1, KHMY for several of those years. But Walker has been a fixture on radio in the Hutchinson-Wichita area since 1980.

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