The health of a nation's children is one of the primary indicators of the health of its communities...too many children live in communities where they are deprived of the prerequisites for good health.
Source: The California Endowment web site |
Worth Reading...
Now leaving the land of opportunity
Even before the 2008 economic crisis, a substantial number of highly skilled immigrants started returning to their home countries. This exodus includes many valuable workers who contributed significantly to this nation's high-tech boom. Who are these workers? Why are they going back to their home countries? Click here to read America's Loss is the World's Gain: America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Part 4.
Source: Wadhwa, Vivek, Saxenian, AnnaLee, Freeman, Richard B. and Gereffi, Gary, America's Loss is the World's Gain: America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Part 4(March 2, 2009). |
Also Worth Reading...
Strategic Factors for Building Community: The Five C's -
Community, Connections, Control, Cash & Collective Action
This brief report describes the strategic factors for stimulating
community-wide health and well-being. It illustrates how each of the Five C's can be put together to develop an effective, broad-reaching, and sustainable
community development strategy. To access the report, click here. | |
| Greetings!
Welcome to our monthly e-newsletter. In today's issue, we bring you news of current Community Science projects including a bold, 10-year strategic initiative in California to improve the health of youth in underserved communities and Adult Education Centers in Connecticut finding innovative ways to address health care literacy.
We hope you find this issue useful and welcome your feedback.
Sincerely,
David Chavis, President and CEO
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Building Healthy Communities in California
The California Endowment will embark on a bold, 10-year strategic initiative, Building Healthy Communities, in 2010. The goal of this statewide venture is to improve the health of underserved communities, creating environments where children are healthy, safe and ready to learn. Recently, 14 California communities were selected to participate in the foundation's Strategic Vision.
Community Science has been assisting The Endowment to develop its Theory of Change as well as its long-term Learning and Evaluation Plan. Our group has been working collaboratively with members of The Endowment's evaluation and program staff to integrate the use of information and evaluation skills into decision-making and strategy improvement in this effort, which will work locally and at the state level to build healthier communities. Community Science has engaged national experts and our own staff to develop an evaluation that will capture multiple changes in the health, human service, and educational systems as well as the community environment and in the population over the next ten years.
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Steps to Achieving Lasting Change
How can we address complex social problems in communities and make an impact on a larger scale? By changing institutions' policies and practices, and developing new strategies that address root causes of social problems. Community Science' David M. Chavis, Ph.D. and Tina R. Trent, M.A., (now with NeighborWorks America) co-authored Scope, Scale, and Sustainability: What It Takes to Create Lasting Community Change, recently published in the inaugural issue of The Foundation Review.
In the study, funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, eleven completed community change initiatives (CCI) were analyzed to better understand what had been learned from these initiatives about how to reach the scope, scale, and sustainability needed to achieve lasting community change. Click here to access the paper.
To find out more about subscribing to The Foundation Review, click here. | |
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Adult Ed Centers Teach Reading, Writing...and Health Literacy
How can adult education centers improve health literacy for students? The Connecticut Health Foundation addressed this issue, with the goal of empowering an underserved population to work more effectively with their health care providers. The study funded six Connecticut adult education centers to integrate health literacy into the curricula. This novel undertaking could help people with traditionally low education, literacy level and limited English proficiency take a more active role in their health care. Community Science evaluated this program, using a mixed methods approach. It included surveys and interviews to produce quantitative and qualitative data. Results showed that the six centers clearly improved their capacity to teach health literacy and adult students improved their health literacy. The program's success could pave the way for similar strategies across the country. To access the evaluation report, Health Literacy in Adult Education Settings Grant Project, click here or email Community Science. | |
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