After many, many months and the help and support of staff at the Maternal,
Child and Adolescent Health Branch and the Nutrition Services Branch
(especially the WIC Breastfeeding Promotion Unit) of the California
Department of Health Services, I'm pleased to announce that there is now a
"Toolkit" to help hospitals that are working to implement the California
Model Hospital Policy Recommendations.  

The toolkit is web-based, so that it can be kept current.  The goal mostly
to facilitate links to other sites that provide information and resources.
Whenever possible, there are also links to abstracts and full documents of
the references.  

There are also some documents that are in Excel or Word created and shared
by others. These are not "recommended" documents, but rather to be used as a
draft that hospital staff could modify for their own agencies. Many members
of Lactnet offered suggestions and some even freely gave their materials so
that this toolkit could be useful not only for those in California but for
others as well.  

As the Model Hospital Policies parallel the BFHI, but are not as emotionally
laden, we hope that hospitals in California will be more likely to implement
them - thereby being just "baby steps" away from Baby Friendly
certification. 

We would appreciate feedback (there is an e-mail address embedded in the
toolkit, that we hope you use, as we also want to keep track of the number
of "hits")and suggestions on additional links or materials that you would
recommend.  

If you do send me materials that could be used/modified, PLEASE only send me
materials you are legally able and willing to share, with a note in the
footer that identifies the author and state "permission to share" is given
for NON-COMMERCIAL USE.

I can't tell you how helpful and hardworking the Webmaster has been - he's
now signing up for one of the breastfeeding classes I've offered to the
state staff!!!  <grin>

Jeanette Panchula, BSW, RN, PHN, IBCLC
California, USA

Disclosure: I am paid for this work by the California Nutrition Services
Bureau, so I "financially benefit" from it.

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