Funded projects include helping more people gain health coverage, trauma-informed care program expansions, and reconnecting families through strengthening caregiver-child bonds.
In the final quarter of 2022, the Health Foundation for Western & Central New York awarded grants totaling $1,389,822 to support projects that pursue health equity and enhance the health of our communities. These programs include:
Buffalo Toronto Public Media – Older Adults News Desk ($60,000)
Since 2017, the Health Foundation has provided underwriting support for the WBFO Older Adults News Desk for their coverage of in-depth news stories about the most important issues facing older adults. This programming raises awareness and inspires public dialogue on these issues while influencing positive change that improves the lives of older adults, their caregivers, and the systems that serve them.
Cayuga Community Health Network – Doula Partnerships of Cayuga, Cortland, Herkimer, and Madison Counties ($520,000)
These funds will support Cayuga Community Health Network (CCHN) as they continue to lead the development of the Doula Partnership of Cayuga, Cortland, Herkimer, and Madison Counties to improve maternal health outcomes by connecting Medicaid eligible pregnant and birthing people with trained doulas in each of those counties. In collaboration with Seven Valleys Health Coalition, Herkimer County Public Health, and Madison County Rural Health Council, CCHN will provide training and support for new and currently serving doulas and the families they work with, particularly those experiencing poverty, migrant and non-migrant farmworkers, Amish, Mennonite, and formerly incarcerated populations.
This approach will consist of community and provider education about the role of doulas, basic doula training as well as other important relevant training and information, developing and strengthening a referral network for providers and doulas, and providing and creating a learning community of doulas. The learning community is a new feature of the program that will help ensure a corps of doulas ready and able to serve in any of the four counties.
Clarity Wellness Community – Building Capacity for Financial Management ($27,000)
This funding will enable Clarity Wellness to complete a financial needs assessment and receive technical assistance with the implementation of new accounts receivable software, in support of their continuing work in community mental health.
Co-Creating Well-Being: Trauma-Informed Care Targeted Expansion Pilot ($340,000)
Co-Creating Well-Being (CCWB) is a multi-phase program to increase the number of trauma-informed services and service providers in the Health Foundation’s western and central regions. Current CCWB grantee partners – including Ardent Solutions, the Early Childhood Alliance of Onondaga County, and the United Way of Buffalo and Erie County – will continue expansion of their projects to additional targeted areas and audiences. Expansions include a learning collaborative to help the grantee partners discuss and identify best practices for working with additional audiences through an equity lens, and technical assistance on using Results Based Accountability (RBA) to help drive implementation and decision making.
Ardent Solutions will expand the work of its TICTAC Coalition into Genesee, Livingston, Onondaga, and Wyoming Counties. In Onondaga County, the Early Childhood Alliance will expand its Thriving Not Just Surviving program work with parents to additional parent groups, including the 2Gen Program, Catholic Charities Parent Child +, and PEACE, Inc. Head Start program. In Erie County, the United Way will expand its work with the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies Coalition – monitoring the needs of pregnant and parenting people and the availability of services to meet those needs – and establish a Trauma-Informed Self-Care Learning Collaborative to coalition members. Community Connections of New York will serve as the pilot program’s RBA technical assistance provider.
Community Service Society of New York – Keep New York Covered ($105,000)
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government declared a Public Health Emergency (PHE). To maximize enrollment in health coverage, the PHE waived the need to recertify eligibility for Medicaid, Child Health Plus, Marketplace, and Essential Plan coverage. As a result, enrollment in these programs in New York has grown to over 8.8 million residents – roughly half the state population. With the PHE declaration set to end in February 2023, the ensuing need to recertify over 8 million New Yorkers poses a serious threat to the State’s insurance coverage gains.
Keep New York Covered will leverage the existing infrastructure that Community Service Society (CSS) built out through their Reaching the Five Percent program. The program will conduct a rapid procurement process to award grants to community-based organizations (CBOs) across the state so that re-enrollment outreach can begin when the PHE ends. CSS will provide technical assistance to CBOs by sharing and promoting best outreach practices, ensuring timely data entry of outreach events, and convening quarterly meetings to share lessons learned. CBOs will also implement outreach practices and build upon them throughout the winddown.
D’Youville University – Achieving Care Parity for People with Disabilities ($31,446)
D’Youville University is utilizing interprofessional education and simulation to create curricula designed around the needs of people with hearing and visual impairments. Through this funding, they will develop two new simulation trainings using scenarios that center the experiences and needs of people with auditory and visual disabilities. These scenarios will be developed in consultation with agencies such as Deaf Access Services and Visually Impaired Advancement. The educational experiences will be piloted and refined at D’Youville over the course of the 2022-2023 academic year. Following a one-year development and improvement process, D’Youville will bring this inclusive training to area hospitals, health care networks, and health and human services agencies where all staff interacting with patients and/or clients can be trained to better serve patients with disabilities.
Inclusive Alliance IPA, Inc. – Network Planning and Development ($50,000)
Inclusive Alliance will use the funding to further develop their infrastructure and capacity to support member-provided programs and services to the Central New York community. The infrastructure supported by this grant will enable local planning and development of the Pathways Community HUB model of community-based care coordination and billing support for agencies that supply the National Diabetes Prevention Program, a lifestyle change coaching program. Building member capacity to deliver these evidence-based programs meets both Inclusive Alliance’s mission of advancing the growth and quality of cost effective and inclusive individual services for children and adults through innovation, collaboration, and coordination as well as its purpose of preparing its members for value-based payment and managed care.
Integrated Community Alternatives Network – Healthy Connections from the Start Renewal ($81,376)
Integrated Community Alternatives Network (ICAN) serves families with young children in Oneida and Herkimer Counties who are involved in family court by providing weekly, no-cost supervised visitation sessions for non-custodial parents. Their program Healthy Connections from the Start works to ensure that young children ages zero to five experiencing the impact of poverty, racial injustice, and trauma can thrive from the very start. Strengthening the caregiver-child bond through education and activities that foster positive parenting skills and promote healthy physical and emotional development help shape appropriate role and developmental expectations.
New York StateWide Senior Action Council, Inc. – Western and Central New York Health Task Force ($150,000)
The New York StateWide Senior Action Council, Inc. will continue to implement its Health Task Force project in all 16 counties served by the Health Foundation. Over the next three years, the Council will support the implementation of projects that address health care barriers identified by the Health Task Forces, provide technical assistance to the lead organizations for the central New York task forces, and build up leaders. An advocacy training curriculum will also be established to train task force members and other community members to advocate for ways to improve their access and quality of health services.
Western New York Integrated Care Collaborative – Network Capacity Building ($25,000)
This funding will enable Western New York Integrated Care Collaborative member organizations that are preparing to participate in a contract with Great Lakes Integrated Care network to complete social determinants of health assessments and care planning for those they serve.
