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AMOS exists to be an organizational vehicle through which ordinary citizens can address complex public issues, like health care, through research, relationship building and collective action for the common good. Specifically through Quality Healthcare for All we are attempting to involve central Iowa residents directly impacted by mental illness in the shaping and re-organizing of a better, more integrated and accountable mental health care system for all.

Children's Healthy Development Education & Advocacy  
Provide Children's Healthy Development education and information for 2012 legislative session.  Serve as a monitor and voice for children's health including consistent presence at the capitol, committee meetings, and hearings.  Provide updates on children's health issues, summarize in lay language key issues, legislation, implications of federal policies.

Public Health Youth Advisory Board 
To engage up to 30 at-risk youth ages 12-18 in public health issues by creating a Public Health Youth Advisory Board and convening the group to familiarize youth with local public health needs, involve them as co-presenters on health and wellness topics, prioritize current health focus areas, determine strategies for accomplishing youth-led solutions to local needs, and implement solutions through service learning projects related to the strategies.

Pilot project will create a community healthcare safety net system for immigrant and refugee children enrolled in DMPS and their families. Polk County Health Department, Visiting Nurse Services, DMPS Health and English Language Learners departments will coordinate. 200 children will have a comprehensive network of services for dental, vision, hearing, and health care that is organized to meet the language, cultural, and transportation needs of immigrant and refugee families.

Make It Better Iowa
Technical assistance to develop a sustainable model that provides access to mental health services in Central Iowa for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth and their families.  Services include individual counseling sessions, group sessions, and online resources for those unable to make regular counseling services.

ACEs and Mental Illness for Iowa Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey Project will add the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Module and Mental Illness and Stigma Module to the 2012 Iowa Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey.

Apoya Su Salud Integral optimizes the identification, treatment, and evaluation of outcomes for common mental health disorders among adult Latino/a patients of La Clinica by: 1) providing an integrated, supportive care management program that builds on the existing relationship between the Primary Care Provider and the patient, and 2) offering culturally and linguistically appropriate mental health therapy and counseling within the patient's medical home.

Jumpstart Back to School Health Fair  
This event will ensure that kids who lack access to healthcare services are ready for school. They will have their required medical screenings completed as well as have appropriate school supplies. We will also use this opportunity to introduce families to preventive health care, help them access health insurance, and connect them to enriching programs and resources in the community. Kids who are ready for school and can access health services perform better in school and life.

Healthy Opportunities for Parents to Experience Success (HOPES) Program   The goal of LSI's Healthy Opportunities for Parents to Experience Success (HOPES) program is to improve child outcomes in the area of health by connecting families and children to a medical provider to assure optimal health, development, timely immunizations and well child care.

Dallas County Dental Health Project
To improve access to oral health services for Dallas County Women, Infants and Children (WIC) clients by equipping a mobile dental hygiene clinic to provide dental education, preventative dental hygiene services, dental referrals and care coordination services.

Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation
ECMHC is a problem-solving and capacity building intervention implemented within a collaborative relationship between a professional consultant with mental health expertise and one or more professionals, primarily in child care or early education, who have other areas of expertise.  ECMHC aims to improve ability of child care program staff and pre-K programs and teachers, families and systems to prevent, identify, treat and reduce the impact of mental health problems among young children and their families.  The Project expands the scope of ongoing ECMHC to engage and serve child care and early education providers that are not among the United Way partner child care programs. The ECMHC Project will assist childcare and pre-K programs to use social and emotional developmental screening and support training in Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports.  Further the ECMHC Project will collaborate with Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) to coordinate with CCR&R consultation services and prevent duplication.

Healthy Polk 2020 endorsement and support for its promotion within the community to encourage broad acceptance of the plan and its opportunities for engagement and action. To transform community health, detailed information and strategies are needed. We need a process to inventory what we have in our community, and a way to do an analysis of what's missing. Health experts identified by their peers as leaders in their field would be brought together in a guided process to provide concrete ideas for action. The analysis process would identify existing bodies of work in the priority area; answer "what works?" and "what is missing?"; propose innovative strategies in three categories: 1) cutting-edge projects, 2) necessary policies, 3) something every individual or organization can do; and identify indicators to measure success.

Healthier Outcomes for Children Through Improved Child Abuse Prevention Services 
This project will improve health outcomes for Iowa's children through the provision of more effective child abuse prevention services. Toward that end, the project will: (1) conduct a comprehensive evaluation of child abuse prevention services, (2) highlight components of those services that show evidence of effectiveness, (3) identify evidence-based prevention curricula and programs, and (4) increase knowledge of services more likely to produce positive outcomes for children and their families.

The goal of the VNS Outreach Program is to assist families in navigating the health and human services system in Polk County. The Outreach Team serves as a guide in helping individuals and families identify the services that best meet their needs. This guidance is conducted through outreach and education to individuals and families with a variety of needs including health insurance, access to regular medical and dental providers, transportation, age-specific health and development information, and community resources.