Ventura County receives $1.9M Grants for New and Expanded Services Under the Health Center Program from the Health Resources and Services Administration

Quality improvement fund - Ventura County health care agency (vchca), a county government health care system operating 20 federally qualified health center clinics, known collectively as Ventura County community health centers (vcchc), under health center program grant no. H80CS00247, proposes a two-year project (september 1, 2026 through august 31, 2028) to improve access to dental services for children/young adults with neurodevelopmental disorders (ndds) in Ventura County, California. Vchca’s health centers care for 3,971 children and young adults ages 0 to 21 with ndd-related diagnoses, yet in fiscal year 2025-26 only 221 of these children, 5.57%, had at least one dental visit in the past 12 months, and only 26.24% had an established or updated dental treatment plan. Families surveyed by vchca identified cost and insurance concerns, limited appointment availability, sensory and behavioral barriers, and lack of awareness of available services as the primary obstacles to care. The project will implement the evidence-based sensory-adapted dental environment (sade) model, paired with applied behavior analysis (aba)-informed pre-visit desensitization delivered by licensed behavioral health clinicians, at vchca’s two directly operated dental sites, the pediatric diagnostic center (pdc) in ventura and magnolia dental in oxnard. Project activities include expanding pdc operations from one to three days per week; establishing a hospital-based general anesthesia pathway at Ventura County medical center and santa paula hospital for children who cannot be treated in a clinic setting; training dental, behavioral health, and front-line staff in the unique needs of children with ndds; funding dedicated care coordination, referral coordination, and patient navigation; and conducting community outreach through new referral partnerships with tri-counties regional center and autism society Ventura County, and also through the Ventura County oral health program and its member organizations, including the Ventura County office of education. Over the period of performance, vchca will increase the number of children with ndds receiving dental services by a minimum of 300%, to at least 663 children, and raise the proportion of children with ndds receiving dental care who have an established or updated treatment plan to at least 80%, among other goals.