Systems, Foundations, and Behavioral Health: Views from Alaska
The Mat-Su Health Foundation addressed the gap in it’s region’s crisis behavioral health system with a systems approach. This Views from the Field article describes the foundation’s transition from a responsive to emergent strategy and the lessons learned along the way.
Kids and Drinking Water: A Glass Half Full or Half Empty?
Increasing kids’ consumption of drinking water supports their health and learning. Yet most children do not drink enough. There are many challenges to achieving the goal of all children drinking the daily recommended amount of water. This Views from the Field article discusses the policy framework and ways funders can help ensure access to safe drinking water for all children in the United States.
Expanding Impact Through Evaluation
Foundations support evaluations for a variety of reasons: to measure impact and monitor program performance; to strengthen program performance by providing feedback to grantees and foundation staff; and to promote broader learning by grantees, the foundation, and the nonprofit community at large.
Behavioral Health for All
Behavioral health conditions, which include both mental health and substance-use disorders, are among the biggest health problems our country faces. Roughly 50 percent of the population will be affected by these conditions at some point in their lives.
Reforming School Discipline Policies to Improve Children’s Success
n recent years, Atlantic deliberately honed its investments and focused its grantmaking on a small number of big bets with potential for significant impact. One of these priorities was the over-use of “zero tolerance” suspensions, arrests, and expulsions, and their role in pushing children of color into the justice system.
Building Our Way to Better Health
Kaiser Permanente of Georgia’s Community Benefit program has invested a total of $5 million since 2010 in Atlanta’s largest, most dynamic urban redevelopment project – the Atlanta BeltLine.
Building the Evidence: Investing in Research Supporting the Need for Healthy and Active Schools
Those leading our education system today face an enormous amount of pressure, from funding issues to curriculum changes, from absenteeism to state assessment scores. With so much to consider and so much to fit into each school day, leaders are often forced to make decisions that de-prioritize an important aspect of a child’s development: physical activity. Following discussions with numerous stakeholders, the Kansas Health Foundation found that a critical missing piece in making the case for the importance of physical activity at school was timely, state-specific data linking student fitness and academics.
Demonstrating Behavioral Health Impact Using Intensive Community-Based Services
Individuals experiencing an acute episode of mental illness often face challenges navigating a fragmented health care delivery system and overcoming barriers to access appropriate medical and mental health services.