Grant Partners

To purchase and implement a photo ID system for volunteers.

Vinfen has developed Community-Based Health Homes (CBHH) for individuals with serious mental illness to integrate their primary care and behavioral health and address the disparities experienced by the population.  The CBHH model achieves close collaboration approaching an integrated practice by embedding Nurse Practitioners (NPs), Nurses (RNs) and Health Outreach Workers (HOWs) into existing community-based rehabilitation and recovery behavioral health teams, bringing primary care services directly to individuals with serious mental illness in their communities since 2012.  Over the past three years, Vinfen has been actively evaluating and piloting health technologies in an effort to integrate behavioral and primary health care for its population.  The Foundation-supported expansion program embeds two HOWs and the use of a smartphone app specifically designed to support the population into a dispersed, community-based outreach team.  A dedicated Program Coordinator will manage the program, collect data and evaluate impact.

To secure a developer to redesign its website and implement a search engine optimization to increase the volume of site visitors. 

South Middlesex Opportunity Council (SMOC) provides housing and supportive services to disadvantaged, homeless, single adults in three regions of the state:  MetroWest/Framingham, Central Mass/Worcester, and the Merrimack Valley/Lowell.  SMOC will evaluate the impact of its Housing First program that recognizes an immediate and primary focus on helping clients access and sustain permanent housing, to test the hypothesis that stable housing leads to improved health outcomes, and ultimately, a reduction in health costs.  Three hundred clients will be placed into housing and evaluated as part of this project.  SMOC will identify those clients with the highest service needs at entry into shelter, and then follow them into and throughout their housing placement in order to measure their health outcomes at various points along the continuum of homelessness and housing.

To hire a grant writer to help secure additional foundation and state government grant funds.

Dukes County will participate in community outreach events, and use paid and unpaid advertising and social media to promote affordable insurance information. They will develop a folder with handouts for appointments, and adapt a checklist for account set-up, enrollment and payment information, primary care provider selection, and making appointments. It will also set up reminder systems for clients with pending action steps. 

Project Director: Tricia McGinnis, MPP, MPH

“Best Practices and Lessons Learned from Partnerships between Health Care Providers and Community-based Organizations” is a one year grant that will support the development of an event featuring two health care provider and community-based organization (CBO) partnerships identified through a companion project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation project. The partnerships highlighted will help inform how developing accountable care organizations in Massachusetts could establish similar partnerships to support the integration and coordination of social determinants of health with health care services. The featured health care provider/CBO partnerships will highlight lessons learned and explore the different types of activities and approaches to establish viable partnerships and drive improved patient outcomes. In addition, the grantee team will develop an issue brief that synthesizes best practices and lessons learned, highlighting actionable takeaways and operational activities for health care providers. The brief will also incorporate insights gleaned from engaging Massachusetts stakeholders during the event.

To hire a consultant designer to redesign marketing materials.

To purchase a new exam table for its Medical Clinic.

Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations (MACDC), in partnership with the Mel King Institute, will train community developers and offer technical assistance to help them partner with local hospitals to address the social determinants of health at the community level.  Content of the trainings include hospital Community Benefit programs, the Determination of Need program, reforms to health care under Medicaid and requirements for Accountable Care Organization models, and successful examples of partnerships between the hospital and housing communities.  This program seeks to build partnerships with community developers, as hospitals are addressing the needs identified in their own Community Health Needs Assessment processes. 

To hire a strategic planning consultant.

Community Action Committee of Cape Cod & Islands (CACCI) will conduct outreach activities and assist individuals with applications or redeterminations.  They will use informational flyers and educational presentations to health and human service providers, businesses that cater to immigrants, and career centers.  They will notify those on subsidized insurance of impending deadlines, importance of responding to reviews, and develop an internal system to notify known households of necessary action steps. Finally, it will provide a comprehensive overview of health plan selection process based on health care needs and budgets, and use of a plan once enrolled.

To redesign the organization's website.

The Health Starts at Home Initiative supports four partnerships that bring together housing and health care organizations to support work that demonstrates the positive effects of stable, affordable housing to children's health outcomes, identify promising new and existing models for collaboration that can be brought to scale, decrease health care costs, and decrease costs related to homelessness.  Families eligible for participation have children under the age of 12, and are experiencing housing instability.  The evaluation partners for Health Starts at Home, Health Resources in Action and the Urban Institute, are conducting both outcome and process evaluations to measure whether and how improved housing stability affects the health of children, as well as to document successes and challenges, and develop best practices for creating these types of health care and housing partnerships. 

To hire a consultant to restructure, re-design, and re-launch the organization's existing website.