Fairfield Behavioral Health Services collaborates with faith-based organizations to provide the latest drug education, the impact drugs have on health, and to enhance faith-based communities’ abilities to educate its congregation, families, and community as well as implement strategies to improve their health.

Wilcox and her colleagues developed the FAN program with funding from a National Institutes of Health grant in 2006. The new funding will allow Wilcox, working with collaborators at USC, Clemson University, Fairfield Behavioral Health Services, the State Baptist Young Woman’s Auxiliary Health Ministry and the S.C. Conference of the United Methodist Church, to implement and evaluate the program in South Carolina churches. The grant also will involve working with DHEC and other community groups in the areas of physical activity and healthy eating. The first phase of the study will focus on Fairfield County, and the second phase will expand the FAN program statewide.

Program Details:
Some of the primary responsibilities of the new grant scheduled to start September 30, 2014 will be to:

• Attend Fairfield Community Health Partners meetings and advise the USC PRC on this research project
• Recruit two community health educators to be trained in how to deliver the Faith, Activity, and Nutrition program to churches.
• Participate in the training of the community health educators.
• Recruit and train 60 churches to be trained in Faith, Activity, and Nutrition: 40 in Year 2 and 20 in Year 3.
• Deliver brief technical assistance to the trained churches
• Work with trained churches to obtain implementation plans.
• Help coordinate USC PRC site visits and interviews with churches, leaders and USC PRC