Brenda, in regard to your question about task forces and HBLC's: I am the
chairperson of a Breastfeeding Coalition in northeast Ohio, which I started
in Jan 2000. "Tricounty Breastfeeding Connections" is a representation of
three counties consisting of hospital LC's, dietitions, WIC members,
parents,LLL members, Board of Health nurses and a rep from Babies R Us.
There are several Peds and Neonatologist that come occasionally, but the
core group is usually about 10 of us.  We meet once a month at alternating
sites for 2 hours in the afternoon.  We have the usual layout of agenda,
minutes, treasurer report and committee reports.  We did get a tax ID
number and have access to a non profit ID. (We were originally a
subcommitte of a parent Women's Health Initiative.)  I looked at other
coalitions around the country and found some ideas there.  Our projects
include putting together a resouce guide which we recently finished and
have placed them in all of our physician offices, libraries and
breastfeeding friendly businesses. We also did a flyer for parents that
gave the benefits of breastfeeding for the physician offices. We have done
TV spots, a one hour local radio talk show, and several speaking
engagements, mall and baby store programs,  to tell what we were all
about.  Our goal is to provide education and resourses, for our populations
of need.  We also want to send some of our successful moms to become
trained as helpers(we have two of them as members).  We have held
professional conferences with Jack Newman and other highly regarded
speakers for our nurses and physicians to raise the level of understanding
and support.  We have a long way to go, but in our 4th year we are closer
to becoming a notable support in our communities.  We don't have a
application fee, many of us used our own money to get started, but we have
a good relationship with our WIC offices that have helped us get small
grants to bring in our speakers.  It is much work!

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