New Responsive Grants promote health, well-being in 18 counties throughout region

We’re pleased to announce 26 grant awards totaling more than $526,000 in the first funding round of the 2012 Responsive Grants Program. These grants of up to $25,000 support programs to improve health and well-being in 18 of the 26 counties of our Northern California funding region.

Funded programs will reach diverse populations and include a broad range of activities, such as providing access to fresh produce for low-income individuals and families, offering education and employment training for youth and adults, improving quality of health care services for low-income patients, increasing access to health services and enhancing mental health crisis intervention.

“The organizations selected to receive Responsive Grant funding provide critical prevention programs and services for underserved populations in our region and we’re pleased to partner with them in this good work,” said Sierra Health Foundation President and CEO Chet Hewitt.

Of the $526,032 awarded in this funding round, 34 percent went to programs serving rural areas of the region. Through two funding rounds this year, we will award about $1 million in Responsive Grants. Since launching the Responsive Grants Program in 2008, more than $4.5 million has supported 192 programs and projects.

We received 233 grant applications in the first funding round this year. Final grantee selection was based on the Responsive Grants Program selection criteria, quality of the applications, geographic representation across the funding region, a minimum 30 percent set-aside for projects serving rural areas, and diversity in types of programs and populations served.

See the grant list and project descriptions on the Responsive Grants Program web page. We will announce this year’s second funding opportunity in June.

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Youth Pathways to Health and Positive Youth Justice Initiative focus on improving outcomes for young people

Sierra Health Foundation has long been committed to improving health outcomes for young people throughout our region to ensure they grow up to be healthy, successful and civically engaged. From our 10-year Community Partnerships for Healthy Children to our six-year REACH Youth Development Program, as well as support for numerous projects and programs, the health and well-being of children and youth has been an important area of foundation investment.

We recently gave this investment area a formal name — Youth Pathways to Health — with an overarching goal to lead or support efforts to ensure those young people at greatest risk of poor outcomes have opportunities to find on-ramps to a healthy developmental path.

Our newest endeavor within Youth Pathways to Health is the launch of the Positive Youth Justice Initiative. This is our first statewide initiative, which will support selected California counties to transform their local juvenile justice systems to improve the education, employment, social and health outcomes of crossover youth — young people with a history in the child welfare system who have experienced documented neglect, abuse and/or trauma, and who currently are engaged in the juvenile justice system. County-level partnerships comprised of public agencies, nonprofits and community leaders will work to promote positive youth development practices in their juvenile justice systems.

We recently released the Positive Youth Justice Initiative Request for Applications for 17 eligible counties in California. Grants to be awarded later this year will support one-year planning efforts, with two-year implementation grants following in 2013. Learn more about this work on the Positive Youth Justice Initiative web page.

Visit the Youth Pathways to Health web page to learn about other youth-focused programs and projects.

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Respite Partnership Collaborative members selected

This month 22 charter members were selected for the newly formed Respite Partnership Collaborative, and their work to increase local mental health respite options is now under way.

As we announced in recent issues of Partnerships, the Respite Partnership Collaborative (RPC) is a new public-private partnership of the County of Sacramento, Division of Behavioral Health Services, Sierra Health Foundation and the community at large. The goal of the RPC is to increase local respite service options to offer alternatives to hospitalization for community members experiencing mental health crisis in Sacramento County. The RPC will achieve this goal with funding from the Sacramento County Mental Health Services Act, Innovation Component.

We received numerous RPC applications for membership by the April 16 due date and selected members using criteria to ensure broad and inclusive representation. The RPC meets monthly and initially is tasked with establishing respite services funding priorities, funding structure and criteria to be incorporated into a respite services request for proposals to be released in August.

We will post the member list on the RPC web page in early June.

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Next Healthy Sacramento Coalition meeting set for June 27

The next Healthy Sacramento Coalition meeting will be held at Sierra Health Foundation on June 27. Visit the Healthy Sacramento Coalition web page to learn about the coalition, register to attend the June 27 meeting and sign up for the mailing list.

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Judith Snow addresses inclusion at Sierra Health Foundation workshops

We were pleased to welcome guest speaker Judith Snow to Sierra Health Foundation on May 17 and 18 for two powerful workshops titled Inclusion is the Path of Choice! An internationally known speaker, author, community builder, inclusion activist and trainer from Canada, Ms. Snow also is a faculty member of the Asset Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University.

A person with limited mobility, Ms. Snow brings a personal perspective to the work of valuing diversity in community development. In her highly interactive workshops, she encouraged participants to think in different ways about inclusion and creating the community they want.

The workshops were part of our Public Education Speaker Series.

Learn more about Judith Snow at www.judithsnow.org.

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