Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 4, 1995                   TAG: 9508040005
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CHIP DIRECTOR GROWS INTO NEW POST HELPING TEENS

Balla will become director of the Roanoke Adolescent Health Partnership, a cooperative effort of the Roanoke Redevelopment Housing Authority, Roanoke City Health Department, Carilion Health Systems and Roanoke City Public Schools.

The partnership seeks to overcome barriers to health care for teen-agers. It operates health centers at Patrick Henry High and William Ruffner Middle schools and a community teen health center at the Hurt Park public housing community, where teens can receive basic medical care and counseling free.

Balla said she has mixed feelings about leaving CHIP. She has been with the organization since it was founded seven years ago.

But leaving one organization that provides basic health care for low-income children under 6 for another that has a similar aim for adolescents seems a natural progression, Balla said.

"With my new job, I'm just moving along" with children who have grown out of the CHIP program, she said.

Balla leaves CHIP just as the W.K. Kellogg Foundation grant that provided the organization its seed money expires. Though CHIP is entering the new fiscal year with an operating deficit, as it had last year, the organization is in a better financial position now than it has ever been, Balla said.

CHIP's support from Roanoke Valley governments grew this year, she said. Roanoke increased its funding from $11,000 to $43,000. Salem's $37,000 allocation remained the same as last year's, but the city opened a satellite CHIP office this year, at no cost to the organization.

Roanoke County provided $16,600 and Botetourt County $5,500, both slightly higher than what they had allocated last year.

"There is less of a deficit this year," Balla said. "We're not quite in the same situation we were in last year, but we're still in need of additional resources."

Balla said she will split her duties somewhat between both organizations until CHIP is further along in recruiting her successor.

"CHIP has been my life for the last seven years," she said. "I've watched it grow from no children to now over 1,000 children. I've watched the board grow from an advisory group to a task force to a coordinating council. I couldn't have chosen a better group to work with."