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">Health & Mental Health

FeedMore WNY serves four counties in WNY with food access services. It was created in 2019 through the merger of the Food Bank of WNY and Meals on Wheels for WNY to better serve those in the region without reliable access to healthy, affordable foods. Both organizations collaborated for decades and shared a common mission. By working together as FeedMore WNY, the organizations will expand services, including summer meal programs for kids along with after-school food programs, and food pantries for seniors. The organization also predicts that its food distribution will increase by 10 percent in the first three to five years. In the process of merging, all employees were retained, and the new organization feels the merger is financially advantageous and allows greater flexibility in providing food services to the region.

Grassroots Gardens of WNY (GGWNY) fosters food access, community revitalization, and innovative mental health care for refugees, seniors, and others. The organization's network includes 110 community gardens across Buffalo and Niagara Falls. Aside from offering community members a way to grow fresh, healthy food and vegetables, community gardens can also have therapeutic value. GGWNY is exploring new programs to use existing gardens, both ornamental and food-producing, for behavioral health interventions. These programs, including GGWNY's new therapeutic gardening initiative, have the potential to support the mental wellness of seniors, children, and other residents. The organization is primarily funded through grants and donations. Through its community gardens and other programs, GGWNY engages over 2,000 volunteers from the community. GGWNY is working to become one of the first accredited community garden land trust in the country, and already owns two of the gardens in the network.

Started in 2016 as a project developed through the Mobile Safety-Net Team's North East Buffalo Coalition, the Healthy Corner Store Initiative aims to alleviate the issue of food deserts in Buffalo's east side neighborhoods. The initiative works with corner stores in area neighborhoods to bring fresh, healthy foods into stores that typically only sell processed foods, while also providing technical support to store owners, and education to community members. Since it began, the Healthy Corner Store Initiative has brought healthy foods to six stores on Buffalo's east side. Outside of the support of the Mobile Safety-Net Team, the project was funded by a grant for $118,000 from General Mills, and the initiative is also seeking additional funding from the US Department of Agriculture.

The Health Wagon is a non-profit organization created in 1980 that focuses on improving access to a range of health care services among uninsured or underserved populations in a rural region of Virginia. The Health Wagon provides preventive care, primary care, dental, behavioral health, pharmaceutical, and specialty care services. The organization runs 11 mobile units, two fixed location clinics, local health fairs, and the largest Remote Area Medical Corps (RAM) event in the US. The Health Wagon is led by a team of clinical nurses and volunteers from local colleges and universities. Support staff also include an outreach coordinator, a data systems specialist, and directors of development and operations. In 2017, the organization provided nearly $4.3 million in health care services through over 4,000 patient visits, 86% of whom were uninsured. The program is funded through the support of local foundations, government agencies, and community member donations.

The MOMS Partnership is a program that has successfully reduced depressive symptoms among over-burdened, under-resourced pregnant women, moms, and other adult female caregivers in a family. Launched in New Haven in 2011 by the Yale School of Medicine, the MOMS Partnership brings mental health within reach of women, literally meeting them where they are. The Partnership is supported by collaboration between service providers in the community, the City of New Haven, and the Yale School of Medicine. Specific actions that the MOMS Partnership takes include conducting mental health treatments specific to mothers; developing a maternal mental health-literate, community-based workforce; conducting research on family mental health and its connection to social and economic mobility; and providing centralized family economic success and job readiness supports.

Based in Zimbabwe, this program aims to close the gap between the number of people suffering from mental illness and the number of people who can actually receive treatment for mental illness. Access to mental health treatment through primary care providers in Zimbabwe is extremely limited and does not currently meet the mental health needs of people in the community. The program's novel solution was to place a bench near primary care clinics and train lay health workers (who are all women and 58 years old on average) to recognize and treat mental illness through evidence-based problem solving therapy. When clients come to the clinic, primary care providers can make an initial assessment of need and refer patients to the Friendship Bench based on their assessment. The bench provides a comfortable, outdoor space for clients to talk through their challenges with "community grandmothers." Clients are also given the additional option to join an income-generating peer support group in which they create bags from recylced plastic and are able to share their experiences with other people suffering from mental illness. Since its inception, the program has scaled up to cover 72 clinics in 3 cities, and has provided treatment for over 40,000 people.

Sixteen organizations from across Erie County and the greater Western New York area came together to form the Erie County Anti-Stigma Coalition. On its website, LetsTalkStigma.org, there are educational resources aimed at dispelling negative stereotypes about mental illness, such as that people with mental health problems are violent or that they are bad employees. The coalition also aims to "remove the shame and secrecy surrounding" mental illness through its Join the Conversation campaign, which launched in 2017 and shares the stories of those who have suffered or are suffering from mental illness. On the website, one can also pledge to end stigma by, for example, avoiding using stigmatizing words like "crazy" and "pyscho" in everyday conversation. As of December 2019, over 3,000 people have taken the pledge.

The Canadian Mental Health Association's Mobile York South Simcoe (MOBYSS) launched in 2015 as Ontario's first mobile mental health clinic. MOBYSS focuses on providing a range of confidential mental health services to youth ages 12-25 free of charge, without appointments. The clinic also offers preventive care, acute care, and reproductive health services to youth in the region. The clinic is funded by a number of organizations, including the United Way and provincial government departments, along with community donations. MOBYSS has nurse practitioners, peer support volunteers, and mental health counselors on its staff that assist young people at the travelling MOBYSS vehicle. In its first 18 months, the clinic met with nearly 4,200 young people, 40% of which used mental health support services.

This program aims to increase physical activity of local residents in the rural community of Albert Lea, Minnesota. The program began in 2009 with funding from Blue Zones, LLC, and other partners, including local health systems, state agencies, and corporate sponsors. The Albert Lea Blue Zones Program focuses on three service areas: promoting walking at local schools and businesses through public education; encouraging residents to form their own neighborhood walking/biking groups, and; creating quality public spaces that facilitate active recreation. The program also aims to limit tobacco use, promote healthy diets, improve the physical and mental health of employees through workplace interventions, and revitalize Albert Lea’s downtown. The program has shown progress by tracking local health outcomes, including a 70% increase in walking trips, and a combined weight loss of nearly 8,000 pounds in the community from 2010 to 2015.

The Community Health Worker (CHW) program takes a personal approach to promote access to critical health services in Virginia’s rural Dan River Region. The program is an initiative of The Health Collaborative, a group of local organizations working to limit rates of chronic disease, that was launched in 2017 with a three-year funding commitment of $3.9 million from local foundations. Community Health Workers (CHWs) are health professionals and trusted community members who volunteer to meet with interested patients soon after hospital stays to ensure they can access the services they need to prevent future hospital visits. Along with linking patients to healthcare and social services, CHWs also offer personal counseling and health education. The program has shown early success in reducing emergency room visits among clients, and has also benefited the career development of CHW volunteers. Many CHW volunteers have used the experience to earn related full-time positions, and the CHW position is now a certified profession in the State of Virginia.