Beyond The Doctor’s Office: Community Solutions to Improve Health

The Alameda County Prosperity Project - a collaboration between the Alameda County Public Health Department, Urban Strategies Council, Alameda County Community Asset Network, and other local partners - is working to improve health and financial well-being in its community by increasing availability and access to fair financial services and products where predatory financial services are disproportionately located.

The East Bay Asian Youth Center and its partners will use their grant funding to fully implement Linked Learning, a high-school level educational approach that links learning with career preparation. The approach has been shown to boost graduation rates, increase college enrollments, and lead to higher earning potential.

The Pacific Institute—in collaboration with Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organization and the City of Richmond—will use its grant funding to increase employment and housing opportunities for formerly incarcerated residents in Richmond, California

The Shasta County Higher Education Task Force
REACH HIGHER Shasta—a collaboration between the Shasta County Health and Human Services Agency, College OPTIONS, the Shasta County Office of Education and 18 other partner organizations—is using its grant funding to help prepare its young people for success in all post-secondary options, so they can obtain high-skill, high-wage jobs that will yield long-term health benefits.

The Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments is working to ease the significant physical, psychological, and social challenges that confront area service members, veterans, and their families. While help is available in this region, many veterans and family members are unaware of the services or have to wait for extended periods of time before such benefits can be obtained. 

The Center for Children’s Advocacy and its partners seek to reform Connecticut’s alternative school system to ensure that students receive appropriate educational services and increase the percentages of students graduating from high school on time.

Through this grant, INPEACE and its partners will work with interested schools to develop community-school partnerships in both the Nānākuli and Waiʻanae Complex Areas by 2014.

The United Way of Southeast Louisiana and its partners want to help ensure that all children in childcare settings in Louisiana get high-quality early care–including education, access to healthy foods, and facilities that meet safety standards–so they are prepared for kindergarten.

Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD) and its partners want to change state and city policies to support school construction and renovation. The coalition will pursue the redeployment of state funding and new city revenues as guarantees for capital school construction investments totaling $2.4 billion.

The Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center, University of Michigan School of Public Health and their partners are using their grant funding to mobilize parents and students to advocate for school policy change to improve graduation rates at several of Detroit’s lowest-performing schools in the hopes of ultimately putting these students on a path toward better jobs and improved health. 

PedNet, a coalition of community members, business representatives, schools and agencies seeking to increase active living in Columbia, MO, are using a tool called a health impact assessment (HIA) to demonstrate to decision makers the connection between expanded public transit options, employment and health.

The Las Vegas Healthy Communities Coalition in partnership with the United Way of Southern Nevada and its key partners want to eliminate barriers that Nevada families face in finding quality, affordable, and accessible early childhood programs that are instrumental to getting the right start in life.

Under the grant, the health department and its coalition partners hope to increase resident engagement and the community’s sense of safety by turning three public schools into so-called community schools.

To persuade policymakers to implement standard kindergarten readiness assessments statewide, the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and its coalition partners plan to develop briefing papers, analyze household survey data related to early childhood outcomes, and build grassroots support among school boards and service providers. 

In collaboration with the Invest in Kids Now! coalition and the New Mexico Community Data Collaborative network, New Mexico Voices for Children is using its grant funding to help communities and decision-makers understand and support public policies and practices that promote both early childhood education and health.

Under the grant, the Dignity in Schools Campaign-New York (DSC-NY) aims to turn around New York City’s school discipline policies that today encourage schools to react to student behavior with punishments such as suspensions and police interventions.

The Osborne Association, as the coordinator of the New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents, is advocating for the use of Family Impact Statements during sentencing to increase visiting opportunities for families during periods of incarceration by assigning parents to prisons closer to their children and expanding opportunities for supplemental parent/child contact through the use of televisiting technology.

The goal of the Rochester Drug Free Streets Initiative (RDFSI) is to give residents a tool to regain control over their community and their public spaces by taking proactive steps to eliminate existing drug activity and persuade young offenders to make different life choices.

United Way of Salt Lake and the City of South Salt Lake have embarked on the Early Learning Network project which creates a comprehensive, integrated early learning system for children from birth to age five. The goal of the project is simple: by the time a child enters kindergarten, he or she will be ready to learn.

The Healthy New River Valley project uses the two-pronged approach of data gathering and youth engagement to improve health behaviors that lead to many of the poor health outcomes plaguing the community, including teen pregnancy, substance abuse and higher-than-average premature death rates. 

Mason Matters and its partners intend to bolster educational attainment in rural Mason County, Washington, by implementing Career and College Readiness (CCR) activities earlier—targeting 4th through 8th grades—in the county’s schools.

Priority Spokane is setting out to increase high school graduation in the county by identifying and helping at-risk middle school students by improving the middle school experience.