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Sierra Health Foundation Partnerships

Celebrating 30 years of partnership

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30th anniversary logo

This month we’re looking back on our public health grant funding and two of our earlier programs: the Northern California AIDS Initiative and the brightSMILES Dental Partnership.

We developed the Northern California AIDS Initiative to address needs created by the AIDS epidemic. From 1988 to 1991, we awarded 103 grants to 42 organizations in 10 counties. The initiative provided social case management and end-of-life care, as well as prevention of disease transmission. We were one of the partners that granted seed money to create the Center for AIDS Research, Education and Services (CARES). CARES, now Cares Community Health, continues today with a full range of health care services.

Our brightSMILES Dental Partnership promoted children’s oral health and disease prevention from 1999 to 2010. The program began as a partnership of Sierra Health Foundation and the Dental Health Foundation, based on a documented need for prevention of dental disease in Northern California. In the first two phases of brightSMILES, with support from The California Endowment, we awarded grants to nonprofit organizations and public agencies to support direct oral health services. In phase three, we shifted our focus to community water fluoridation as the most effective way to prevent dental caries across populations, and in phase four returned to funding oral health preventive services.

Learn more on our Previous Programs web page.

#SHF30Years

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Sacramento Creating Community Solutions Network celebrates accomplishments

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After more than a year of ongoing work to begin implementing Sacramento’s Mental Health Action Plan, 70 members of the Sacramento Creating Community Solutions Network joined to celebrate on July 24 at Sierra Health Foundation.

Members of the Network Council and four Action Teams shared their implementation activities and outcomes, and offered recommendations for future action. Special guest speaker LaVonna Blair Lewis joined the group to discuss organizational approaches to cultural competency.

The Sacramento County Office of Education is implementing the Mental Health Action Plan with partners Mental Health America of Northern California and Converge CRT. Sacramento’s action plan implementation process is funded through a partnership of Sierra Health Foundation, The California Endowment and Blue Shield of California Foundation. These partners, along with The California Wellness Foundation, funded the planning and delivery of the National Dialogue on Mental Health – Creating Community Solutions Sacramento in 2013 and the development of the resulting action plan. The Center for Health Program Management manages the project.

Learn more about the action plan and its implementation on the Network web page.

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New video highlights Positive Youth Justice Initiative’s early efforts to improve county systems

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As part of the Positive Youth Justice Initiative, we’ve partnered with Forward Ever Media to produce a set of videos that tell the story of implementing this transformative initiative. The latest video captures the impact created at the community level by county partners involved in the initiative.

The Positive Youth Justice Initiative’s four grantee counties are redesigning their approach to supporting some of their most vulnerable youth. County innovation plans integrate an approach that invests in youth, treats trauma, provides wraparound service delivery and changes systems. The initiative’s ultimate goal is to encourage system transformation that is focused on the development of healthy youth rather than punitive sanctions and confinement.

Watch the video on YouTube.

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Learn more on the Positive Youth Justice Initiative web page.

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Center for Youth Wellness guide provides foundation for trauma-informed care in juvenile justice systems

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Early exposure to stressful or traumatic experiences is an unfortunate reality for many justice-involved youth. Research on adverse childhood experiences shows that they can have a profound impact on a child’s developing brain and body with lasting impacts on their health and livelihood.

Treating trauma is one of four core elements of our Positive Youth Justice Initiative and the work being done in counties to transform juvenile justice practice. A trauma-informed system better supports the well-being of youth involved in the justice system and can ensure a more successful re-entry into the community and help to prevent health-related issues.

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We were pleased to partner with the Center for Youth Wellness to publish Adverse Childhood Experiences, Toxic Stress and Implications for Juvenile Justice: A Guide for Positive Youth Justice Initiative Counties. The Center for Youth Wellness created the guide to provide a foundation for trauma-informed care and to support leaders in the counties involved in the Positive Youth Justice Initiative.

While the guide was written for Positive Youth Justice Initiative grantee counties, we hope that other county leaders and juvenile justice stakeholders can use this resource in the development of groundbreaking trauma-informed care strategies in their local juvenile justice systems.

Download the guide on the PYJI Publications web page.

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Funding Youth Permanency offers counties fiscal guidance and resources

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Young people aging out of foster care without permanent, stable families often face enormous challenges, such as lack of education, unemployment and sometimes homelessness or incarceration. Placing foster youth with permanent families not only can improve their opportunities for success in adulthood, it has significant positive fiscal impacts for the counties that are responsible for their care.

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In partnership with Families NOW, last month we published Funding Youth Permanency: A County Guide to Funding Child-Centered Specialized Permanency Services for Youth in Foster Care, which was researched and prepared by Families NOW, formerly Mission Focused Solutions. The guide was created to provide counties a fiscal methodology to meet the objective of achieving permanent families for all youth before they age out of foster care.

Download Funding Youth Permanency on our Publications web page.

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San Joaquin Valley Health Fund launch video now online

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We’re pleased to share the first San Joaquin Valley Health Fund video, which includes highlights from the grantee convening in Fresno, interviews with representatives from three grantee organizations and three funding partners who identify some of the needs in the region, as well as beautiful footage of the San Joaquin Valley.

Watch the video on YouTube.

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Visit the San Joaquin Valley Health Fund web page.

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