The first thing we have done is commission a telephone survey, ... We talked to 608 adults in our five-county area, and, based on the results of the survey, we felt it necessary to conduct focus groups.

We've had tremendous improvement of health outcomes over the past decade. People don't think we're making much progress. But people need to know we are and our investments we're making are paying off.

We are looking for ways to promote early childhood education to people face to face, ... Many of the people we interviewed say they would like help but do not respond well to toll-free hotlines. We want to look for ways to get out there and work with people in person. This should be an interactive program.

Most of those surveyed recognized the building blocks of literacy, which means we are making progress, ... But what is bad is only 15 percent of those interviewed believed this should be done by age 1. Early development needs to begin from birth, and that is one of the things we need to make more people aware of.

I just think the County Commission needs to suck it up. We're doing our part. At some point, you have to stop talking about it.

We still have the remainder of Forrest County as well as Lamar and Perry counties to survey. If those figures hold true there's going to be a lot of people who need help.