Last Friday, The North Carolina Local Health Department Accreditation (NCLHDA) Board awarded the Orange County Health Department (OCHD) Reaccreditation with Honors. OCHD met 147 of the 148 activities for accreditation and will come up for re-accreditation in 2027.
“This was a phenomenal accomplishment for our department considering what we’ve been through the last few years,” said Quintana Stewart, Orange County Health Director. “Preparation for the site visit was truly a team effort with every single staff member contributing in some way. The staff and residents of Orange County have much to be proud of.”
OCHD engages in a number of community outreach programs and collaborates with a variety of organizations and communities. The NCLHDA site visit team highlighted two unique programs during their visit: Family Success Alliance, which serves families to break the cycle of poverty so that all children and families in Orange County thrive in school, jobs and life, and the Gateway Collaborative, which offers services in the Gateway Village housing community with the goal of bringing agencies together to support residents. In this program, the health and social services departments rent an apartment within the housing community to serve as a community resource center.
Additionally, the site visit team identified the Board of Health’s supportive relationship with Stewart and the department as a best practice.
OCHD provides an array of public health services to include maternal health, breastfeeding support, family planning, communicable disease testing and treatment, outbreak investigation, nutrition counseling, as well as primary care and dental care for children and adults.
OCHD also offers an immigrant and refugee health program and provides services such as communicable disease screening for newly arriving refugees. OCHD provides mental health resources administered by licensed clinical social workers to address issues such as depression, parenting, relationship conflicts, and substance use.
In addition to permitting and inspections, OCHD’s environmental health services include the investigation of public health environmental health complaints, water sampling, lead poisoning investigations, Servsafe certification, and septic system installation training.
To learn more about Orange County Health Department programming and services, visit the OCHD website.