The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) awarded 12 matching grants through the Local Funding Partnerships program in 2007 - only eight percent out of 145 strong applications received. Congratulations to these innovative community agencies, their coalition partners and their funding partners.

Here's a link for more information about RWJF's Vulnerable Populations portfolio.

California, Culver City
$500,000 to Westside Children's Center
Funding Partners include: The Atlas Family Foundation, The Annenberg Foundation, The California Endowment, Carl & Roberta Deutsch Foundation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Jewish Community Foundation, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, Weingart Foundation

In the first three years of a child’s life, a secure relationship with the primary caregiver helps develop the emotional health that predicts later success in school and work. But social factors such as poverty, homelessness, recent immigration, and domestic and community violence impair these family dynamics. The Westside Infant-Family Network (WIN) offers mental health care for vulnerable young children and their families delivered via six collaborating community organizations.

Building on their longstanding relationships with neighborhood families, staff at the local food pantry, childcare center, health clinic, and other partner agencies has been cross-trained to recognize mental health concerns. The network employs a team of culturally sensitive therapists and psychiatrists to treat families at home or on-site at each agency. A local funder originally convened the agencies to identify and address unmet needs. The resulting integration of community services and behavioral health care has attracted a strong coalition of funders.

California, Los Angeles
$500,000 to Homeboy Industries
Funding Partners include: The John and Geraldine Cusenza Family Foundation

Metas are goals in Spanish and the ambitious goals of the Homeboys MHETAS (Mental Health and Treatment Assistance Services) Project support youth and young adults transitioning out of gangs in East Los Angeles, CA. Homeboys Industries is a well respected, community-based, “gang-neutral” organization that already draws gang members hoping to create a new life through job training, employment and free tattoo removal.

In this “safe space” individuals will now be further supported with therapy, family and marriage counseling, and treatment for trauma and substance abuse. The project partners with a large community mental health provider that will assign Licensed Clinical Social Workers to work on-site at Homeboys. Technical assistance and evaluation comes from the Center for Health Disparities at University of California at Davis.

Florida, Boca Raton
$500,000 to Volunteers for the Homebound and Family Caregivers, Inc.
Funding Partners include: Toppel Family Foundation, BankAtlantic Foundation, Gertrude E. Skelly Charitable Foundation, Jim Moran Foundation, Lattner Family Foundation, Palm Healthcare Foundation, Inc. , P.L. Dodge Foundation, The John W. Henry Family Foundation, The Schmidt Family Foundation

While there is an established need for support services for adults who care for ill or disabled family members, there has been no attention to the needs of caregiving youth. These youth are often isolated, unable to participate in age-appropriate activities and do poorly in school. In a 2002 Palm Beach County survey, one in three adolescent public school students indicated adverse effects on their education as a result of caring for someone affected by illness, aging or disability.

The Caregiving Youth Partner Project will identify middle-school students most in need of support and provide in-school counseling, respite care, outside activities and links to existing services such as transportation, medical care and equipment, food services and tutoring. Local funders are highly committed to alleviating the stress of this hidden population and “returning their childhood” to them.

Massachusetts, Framingham
$493,000 to Wayside Youth & Family Support Network
Funding Partners include: Metrowest Community Health Care Foundation, Middlesex Savings Charitable Foundation, The Carlisle Foundation, The United Way of Tri-County

At-risk youth making the critical transition to adulthood from the streets, the criminal justice system or foster care often face a fragmented system of services. The Tempo Young Adult Resource Center will demonstrate a new service integration model by co-locating existing community services in one convenient downtown building.

Using one primary intake system, coalition partner agencies will provide youth 17-24 with outreach, case management, mental health and substance abuse counseling, legal advocacy, and health, housing and employment services. The center will cultivate skills of independent living and peer leadership, employ young adult consumers and share governance with a young adult advisory council.

Missouri, St. Louis
$500,000 to Epworth Children & Family Services
Funding Partners nclude: Incarnate Word Foundation, Daughters of Charity Healthcare Foundation of St. Louis, Deaconess Foundation, Express Scripts Foundation, Lutheran Foundation, Missouri Foundation for Health, Norman J. Stupp/Commerce Bank, St. Louis Mental Health Board, Trio Foundation of St. Louis

The Aging Out Initiative was born of the collaboration of nine local foundations, determined to change the systems that leave youth especially vulnerable when they “age out” of foster care. The funders convened local child service agencies to develop a single-entry model of coordinated services. The project staff includes care coordinators and former foster youth and will target teens at greatest risk for homelessness and isolation.

To ensure a successful transition to independence, the project focuses on providing the knowledge and skills needed for self-sufficiency. Youth will learn how to access health care, employment and housing as well as how to manage their finances. The program is designed to build self-esteem and confidence so emancipated youth will be able to advocate for their own entitlements. The local coalition of health, corporate and family foundations will provide continued oversight and fund an evaluation. Both the grantmakers and the project staff envision a successful model leading to statewide policy change.

Ohio, Cincinnati
$438,850 to Cincinnati Union Bethel
Funding Partners include: The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, Xtraordinary Women Inc.

Supported by the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati and based at the city’s oldest social service agency, Off the Streets helps women involved in prostitution move toward safety, recovery, empowerment and community reintegration. Leaders from the police, the courts and other agencies worked with women with histories of prostitution to develop the successful pilot program.

This comprehensive intervention blends significant peer support with available community housing, substance abuse treatment, employment training, primary care and mental health services. Women also participate in alternative therapies such as yoga, massage and journal writing to enhance self-esteem. The project is a public/private partnership operating at the intersection of health and the criminal justice system.

Oregon, Portland
$500,000 to Oregon Law Center
Funding Partners include: Kaiser Permanente Fund at the Northwest Health Foundation

Thousands of Oregon farmworkers come from indigenous communities in Central America and Mexico, many speaking only their native languages such as Mixteco, Trique or Zapotec. They are especially vulnerable to the demands of Spanish-speaking mayordomos, “bosses” who control workers’ jobs and living conditions. Frequently female indigenous farmworkers are victims of sexual assault, but barriers of language, culture and economic necessity keep them silent and invisible to medical and legal professionals.

The Project Against Sexual Assault of Indigenous Farmworkers seeks to prevent sexual harassment, mediate the health and psychosocial effects of sexual abuse and bring perpetrators to justice. The Oregon Law Center has built a strong partnership among indigenous farmworkers, the farmworkers union, local health care providers and the state Attorney General’s Task Force on Sexual Assault. Interventions include small group home visits to teach women about their rights, native speakers to interpret at the local clinic, socio-dramas and other educational programs on the union’s 24-hour radio station, and legal advocacy to seek redress and protection.

Oregon, Portland
$500,000 to Outside In
Funding Partners include: United Way of Columbia-Willamette, Clackamus County Department of Human Services, PacificSource Charitable Foundation, Providence Health System

The Neighborhood in Need project will provide health and human services for homeless and high-risk youth, sex workers and their children, chronically homeless adults with mental illness, and injection drug users who make up a growing population living just outside the city limits of Portland, OR. These vulnerable people were displaced by inner-city gentrification and now reside in this impoverished neighborhood on the border of two counties.

A new coalition including a Portland health center, hospital systems, a domestic violence program, Clackamas county and Multnomah county homeless services and health department programs, a charter school, and an agency for at-risk youth will extend their current service areas to offer medical and social programs. The coalition’s long-term objective is to develop a new health center, a youth resource center and school-based health services.

South Dakota, Rapid City
$50,000 to Catholic Social Services
Funding Partners include: Bush Foundation

This planning grant supports development of a culturally sensitive prevention curriculum for grades 2-5 in three Lakota tribal communities—the Pine Ridge, Rosebud and Cheyenne River reservations. Prevention Programming for Lakota Youth will focus initially on substance abuse and suicide prevention, and later will incorporate topics related to violence prevention and sexual activity. The project will take advantage of the strong positive relationship that Catholic Social Services has established on these reservations.

In consultation with experts in South Dakota and elsewhere, staff will base the program on existing prevention curricula for young Native Americans. They will work with local tribal leaders to adapt the curricula for the Lakota youth and plan to develop in school, after-school, summer school, and family and community activities.

Tennessee, Knoxville
$450,485 to Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee
Funding Partners include: Thompson Charitable Foundation, Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church, Covenant Health, Sequoyah Hills Presbyterian Church, St. Mary’s Health System

Seniors who want to maintain their health and independence in their own homes need access to reliable, affordable services ranging from help with medical appointments and transportation to grocery shopping and home repairs. The One Call Club for Seniors offers a referral program where project staff will screen service providers for quality and dependability, negotiate discounted prices for members, and follow up to determine if service was satisfactory. To serve low-income seniors and sustain the program, the project will test a new business model using a sliding-scale membership fee.

Tennessee hosts a growing population of retirees from other states who are isolated from family members and limited by fixed incomes, but who are not eligible for publicly funded assistance programs. The project will target low-income individuals as well as those who can afford to pay. An evaluation by the Office of Research and Public Service at the University of Tennessee will determine if the sliding-scale membership model succeeds in sustaining the program. The local Area Agency on Aging has already expressed interest in replicating the project in other counties.

Wisconsin, Neenah
$500,000 to Children's Hospital of Wisconsin - Fox Valley
Funding Partners include: John J. & Ethel D. Keller Donor Advised Fund, Citizen’s Bank, Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region, Crystal Print Foundation, Inc., Insurances Services, Inc., M & I Marshall & Ilsley Bank, Myra M. & Robert L. Vandehey Foundation, R.D. & Linda Peters Foundation, Robert and Patricia Endries Family Foundation, Ltd., Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Foundation, WHG Applebee’s

In this promising service delivery model, pediatric psychiatrists partner with primary care providers to increase mental health services for underserved children in a rural, seven-county region of Wisconsin. For childhood disorders such as depression, ADHD, and anxiety, a psychiatrist will evaluate a child and then coordinate ongoing care with the local pediatrician.

Fox Valley Pediatric Behavioral Medicine and Health Services offers a significant systems change: two local health systems will open their mental health services to all children regardless of their insurance affiliation. The project staff will reach out to the most vulnerable populations including Hmong, Latino and Native American families.

Wisconsin, West Allis
$500,000 to Transitional Living Services, Inc.
Funding Partners include: Greater Milwaukee Foundation, AMS Fund, Faye McBeath Foundation, Forest County Potawatomi Community Foundation, Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation

When an individual with chronic mental illness experiences an after-hours crisis, the only alternative has been a trip to jail or the emergency room. Now the Milwaukee Crisis Resource Center will offer community-based short-term stabilization and recovery services staffed by peer support specialists and an on-site nurse.

The Center provides mental and physical health assessment, case management and temporary respite housing with 24-hour on-call support from psychiatrists and the local detoxification center. The project emphasizes connecting clients with existing programs that provide stable housing, mental health, legal services and more. A 45-member community mental health task force including the police, courts, county mental health, hospital systems, mental health service providers and consumers, family members and advocates developed this remarkable public/private partnership.

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