Stanislaus County sheriff's Lt. Larry Stehle clomped up the stairs of a battered trailer in Modesto's Del Rio Mobile Home Park and rapped on the door.

He wasn't looking for drug dealers, car thieves or parole violators. He was searching for families in need of health care.

Stehle and a handful of deputies teamed with public health nurses Thursday, bringing free services such as immunizations, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and insurance sign-ups to the South Seventh Street mobile home park.

The effort was part of a program called Care 4 Kids, designed to help children and adults stay healthy while boosting the reputation of law enforcement officers in troubled neighborhoods.

"We don't want people to look at us just as law enforcement, there to take somebody to jail," Stehle said. "We want people to know we're here to help with quality-of-life issues, too."

Stehle got the idea for the program from a similar effort in Reno, where he says medical workers saw fewer children come down with serious health problems, such as pneumonia, four years after the effort began.

In Stanislaus County, sheriff's deputies and nurses started making the rounds earlier this year in places like Del Rio and residential motels on south Modesto's Ninth Street.

Deputies pinpoint neighborhoods in need of help. Then, they knock on doors with the nurses, who provide health care and refer people to clinics and doctors if more medical attention is needed.

The idea, supervising public health nurse Nancy Fisher said, is to hook children up with health services before they come down with serious illnesses.

For example, a child who is not up to date on immunizations could be at risk for polio, whooping cough, measles and chicken pox, she said.

"It really leaves them unprotected," Fisher said.

Nurses also handed out packets containing health information to residents. The packets detailed everything from the locations of Health Services Agency clinics to the importance of testing children for lead exposure.

They also spread the word about the county's Family Planning Access Care and Treatment program, also known as PACT. The program allows adults without health insurance to receive free birth control, pregnancy testing and other family planning services.

Deputies and nurses say they will try to team up once a month to make the visits. A neighborhood in Empire will be their next stop.

Neither agency receives special funds for the program, Fisher said, but officials may consider seeking a grant to expand the effort in the future.

While the Care 4 Kids name implies the services are just for children, the care is available to anyone who wants it, Stehle said.

"Kids up to 6 years old are our target group, but then we have a secondary group," Stehle said. "That's everybody else."

Reprinted by permission of Modesto Bee.