Annual Report 2007
GIH’s 2007 Annual Report document’s the organization’s programmatic and financial activities.
Bridging, Building, and Beyond: Acceptance Speech of the 2008 Terrance Keenan Leadership Award
The following remarks are excerpted from Terri Langston’s acceptance speech for the Terrance Keenan Leadership Award delivered on February 28, 2008, at the GIH Annual Meeting on Health Philanthropy.
Critical Services for Our Children: Integrating Mental and Oral Health into Primary Care
Grantmakers have long been interested in improving children’s access to health care. Yet, a number of services critical to children’s healthy growth and development—such as mental health and oral health services—fall outside the traditional primary care model. This fragmentation of services has contributed to access barriers and has compromised the quality of pediatric care. Growing awareness of the importance of mental health and oral health has resulted in a variety of innovative efforts to integrate these services into children’s health care.
Serving Our Veterans: Filling the Gaps in Military Mental Health
Stories of devastation on the evening news depict families struggling to cope with the health and mental health problems of their loved ones who have served in the military. For too many, help is not coming quickly enough.
Connecting to Community and Building Accountability
Foundations formed from health care conversions are very much engaged with their communities and seek their involvement in program planning and priority setting, according to a new report from Grantmakers In Health (GIH). The findings in Connecting to Community and Building Accountability reveal that the majority of health foundations promote some kind of community input in their work, although most are not required to do so.
Early Childhood Development: The Building Blocks of Health and Well-being
From birth to age five, a child’s brain develops at a rapid pace. As the brain’s foundation is laid, the presence or absence of critical developmental building blocks can profoundly influence a child’s cognitive, emotional, and social potential. Brain and body development are inextricably intertwined; any assessment of a child’s health must consider that a…
Promoting Children’s Mental Health
The problem has been well documented: approximately one in five children and adolescents experiences a mental health disorder in any given year, and 1 in 10 of all youth experiences a mental illness that severely disrupts his or her daily functioning. Yet more than two-thirds who need mental health services do not receive them. While untreated mental illness can set an individual on a devastating path, early intervention or prevention can correct the course.
Communicating for Policy Change
Health foundations have traditionally overlooked communications as an essential tool for achieving strategic goals and, instead, have preferred to engage in “FYI” communications such as issuing annual reports, newsletters, and press releases on foundation grants. As this GIH Issue Brief Communicating for Policy Change reports, this attitude has evolved into one where more and more grantmakers recognize the importance of communications in their own work, specifically efforts to influence health policy.
Back to School: Improving Health Literacy to Improve Health
The start of a new school year represents an opportune time to consider how literacy skills can influence both the quality of the health care services people receive and the health outcomes they experience. Health literacy is defined as the ability to “obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions” (Institute of Medicine 2004).