Telehealth Network Grant Program - Overview and need. Rural children across southeast Kansas face rising diet-related chronic disease with little access to local pediatric dietitians. The 2026 Community Health Needs Assessment for the region reports rates of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease above the national average, rooted in food insecurity and dietitian shortages, in communities marked by high poverty and medically underserved status. For over a decade, Telehealth ROCKS (Regional Outreach for Communities, Kids, and Schools), a rural network of 50+ Kansas schools, clinics, and social service agencies, has expanded specialty care by telehealth; its partners have identified nutrition as a priority need. Proposed services. TeleNutrition ROCKS will establish a sustainable pediatric telenutrition service line, anchored in a deepened partnership with its largest primary care partner, the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas (CHC/SEK). A 1.0 FTE pediatric registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) employed by KU Pediatrics, at the distant/hub site, will deliver telehealth medical nutrition therapy (MNT), individual and group counseling, group classes, cooking demonstrations, nutrition screening, and telefeeding via the KU Pediatrics telefeeding clinic, and coordinate specialty-to-provider teleconsultation across CHC/SEK primary care, school-based clinics, behavioral health, and dental clinics. A 1.0 FTE nutrition-focused community health worker (CHW) will lead food-assistance and food-as-medicine navigation and extend telenutrition support across the network’s CHW workforce. The project builds rural nutrition workforce capacity through supervised dietetics trainees, Project ECHO telementoring, and high-school career exposure. The design advances the prevention-first, food-as-medicine priorities of Make America Healthy Again (MAHA), organized by the CDC Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) framework through a whole-family model. Population groups and service area. The project serves rural, medically underserved children and families in southeast Kansas, including children who are typically developing, have special health care needs, or have developmental disabilities, through the Telehealth ROCKS network and CHC/SEK, which serves 35,000+ children annually, across 13 rural, medically underserved originating sites. The RDN is projected to deliver approximately 1,320 telenutrition encounters in Year 1 (about 8,800 over five years), reaching an estimated 520 unique children and families in Year 1 (about 3,200 over five years). Chronic disease focus areas. Through nutrition care, the project addresses obesity and diabetes as primary focus areas, with asthma, allergies, epilepsy, cancer, cardiovascular conditions, mental health, and neurodevelopmental disorders also addressed across network sites. Funding preference. TeleNutrition ROCKS meets funding preferences (2) Services: the network provides mental/behavioral health, preventive, and public health services; (3) Coordination: with other federally funded projects (e.g., HRSA/OAT, HRSA/BPHC); (4) Network: includes an institution of higher education (KUMC) providing clinical and educational services, an FQHC, and school clinics with health care providers; and (5) Connectivity: promotes local and regional connectivity. Requested award amount. TeleNutrition ROCKS requests $300,000/year for a total of $1,500,000 over five years. Rural funding confirmation. This application proposes to use at least 50% of award funding for activities in rural areas.
