Judy Mikels County supervisor The first Health Care for Kids center opened in Ventura County in 2005 in the city of Santa Paula. A second center opened last March in Ventura.

A joint effort between the county's human services and healthcare agencies, the centers give families access to low-cost or no-cost health insurance for teens and children. Nearly 1,500 youngsters have been enrolled in health insurance programs as a result of the establishment of the two centers.

Last Wednesday, Simi Valley got a Health Care for Kids of its own.

Located at 2003 Royal Ave., the new facility gives local residents easy access to what county officials call a very helpful program.

"We assist the parents with the entire insurance enrollment process. We help them fill out applications and do followup calls," said program coordinator Selfa Saucedo. "We try to educate them every step of the way."

To celebrate the grand opening of the center, health professionals and county officials gathered there for an open house. Linda Henderson, director of the county's public health department, welcomed more than 50 people to the event.

Judy Mikels, county supervisor for the 4th District, praised the cooperation between the county's Human Services Agency and Health Care Agency for spearheading the program.

"The concept was a joint effort of the professionals getting together and realizing a lot of children are falling through the cracks and not getting any healthcare at all," she said.

According to Mikels, uninsured parents may not take their children to a doctor at the first symptoms of an illness because they can't afford it. The children then end up in an ER, where it costs three times as much to treat the child.

The Ventura County Health Care Agency estimates that more than 30,000 children in the county are uninsured. This includes families with at least one working parent.

As many as 28,000 of those may be eligible for nocost MediCal or Healthy Families, a low-cost insurance program, or lowcost private plans.

The Health Care for Kids program helps low-income parents enroll children up to age 18 in an insurance plan regardless of their immigration status. The plans typically provide medical, dental, hospitalization and prescription benefits. Proof of income and residency and the child's birth certificate are some of the criteria used to determine eligibility.

"These were children who didn't have a medical home; now they are getting vision, dental and their health needs," Mikels said. "It just makes sense to have this program."

Ted Myers, director of the Human Services Agency, attended the ceremony along with his colleague, Michael Powers, director of the Ventura County Health Care Agency.

While insuring children makes sense healthwise, it also makes fiscal sense, Myers said.

"Children do much better when they have regular healthcare, not just during emergencies," Myers said. "It's cheap to insure children. There's no reason why we shouldn't insure all of them . . . as a right like clothing and shelter."

Another objective of the program, said Powers, is centralizing services.

"There are programs out there, but they're hard to navigate and might be in multiple sites," he said. "People can now come to one site, sort of one-stop shopping to get linked up with for routine medical care and other services."

For more information, call the Human Services Agency at (805) 584-4841.

A fourth Health Care for Kids center will open at the Centerpoint Mall in Oxnard in December.