Focus Area: Community

The Great Rivers United Way’s project Improving Maternal and Child Health Outcomes through Great Rivers HUB and Community Health Worker/Doula Workforce Expansion (La Crosse County) will expand a community health worker/doula program to reduce the low birthweight and other poor health outcomes by addressing social determinants of health and supporting prenatal care.

Barron County’s project, Improving Maternal Health for the Somali Community, developed a culturally appropriate approach to sharing health information from trusted messengers to improve maternal and infant health in the county’s Somali community. This project aimed to improve maternal-infant health, early literacy and school readiness in Barron County’s Somali community by addressing cultural, linguistic and systemic barriers to care. Through a community-driven approach, the initiative hired and trained Somali community health workers, launched a culturally responsive Somali Mom’s group and based on community feedback, ultimately shifted focus to support childcare certification for members of the community. As a result, seven Somali women became eligible to open certified family childcare programs and fourteen completed training in the business aspects of childcare, expanding culturally appropriate care options while fostering economic opportunity. The project also strengthened local partnerships and advanced culturally informed practices across public health and human services.

The Wood County Health Department (WCHD) received funding to implement Parents as Teachers (PAT), a comprehensive, evidence-based home visiting model to increase parent knowledge, provide early detection of developmental delays and health issues, prevent child abuse and neglect and increase school readiness and success. In its first full year of implementation, the PAT program in Wood County conducted over 360 home visits, retained nearly 70% of enrolled families, held 11 group events, and met all but one of the essential PAT requirements. Strategic changes based on community feedback, including improved referral processes and collaborative planning for group sessions, further strengthened the program’s effectiveness. This initiative has laid a strong foundation for sustainable, long-term impact by embedding the PAT model into the county’s broader maternal and child health services. Families now have increased access to culturally responsive, developmentally focused support, and the community is better equipped to foster safe, nurturing environments where children can thrive.

The Center for Special Children at Vernon Memorial Healthcare La Farge Clinic led the project Support for Mothers and Infants from the Amish and Mennonite (Plain) Communities. The goal was to strengthen statewide capacity to support genetic testing and newborn screening for families in Wisconsin’s growing Plain populations. Recognizing the unique cultural practices and healthcare needs of Amish and Mennonite communities, the project focused on building collaborative relationships and improving access to essential newborn screening services in a culturally respectful and community-driven manner.

Centro De La Comunidad/United Community Center, Inc will develop a regional model of dementia healthcare and caregiver support to improve Alzheimer’s disease detection, diagnosis and supports for Latinos in the southeast region of the state, including Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine and Kenosha. This project will engage existing county and community organization partners to establish a regional approach for earlier detection and diagnosis of dementia while building on existing mobile assessment services, virtual assessments and caregiver support and education to reduce geographical, cultural, financial and language barriers. Dr. Melina Kavanaugh, UW Milwaukee Helen Bader School of Social Welfare is the academic partner.

Education is a building block of healthy communities. When people have access to quality educational opportunities, families and communities thrive. A grant to One City Schools supports the school’s work to advance health equity through an innovative model of early child education. One City will use the funding to develop a rigorous longitudinal evaluation of the school’s novel approach—which includes how it trains staff, engages parents and the larger community, and prepares its young children—to better illustrate how its model of early childhood education and family involvement can close educational and health gaps. Findings will be used to inform expansion of the preschool, inform the fields of early childhood education, and help support public policy and system changes around early childhood education.

“Reentry Rising MKE”, a project led by Employ Milwaukee, aimed to address the health and life outcomes of individuals returning to the community after incarceration. Recognizing that returning citizens face overwhelming challenges such as housing insecurity, employment discrimination and poor health outcomes, the project sought to build a person-centered reentry system rooted in equity and care. Through community-based research, reentry simulations and facilitated dialogues, the project engaged individuals in conversations to better understand and address the systemic barriers to successful reentry.

In the span of the last 100 years, the Menominee Nation has experienced severely limited access to healthy foods. This has caused a dramatic increase in Type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease, both of which occur at a disproportionately higher rate compared to the state’s average. Through this initiative, the Menominee Tribe and its Department of Agriculture and Food Systems created a renewed food system by focusing on access to healthy food, agricultural best practices, raising livestock, Menominee cultural teachings and peer support. The initiative worked to assert tribal sovereignty through the customization of a Menominee Food Code, beginning with food safety regulation of traditional tribal food systems, while promoting healthy food consumption and economic development. By reclaiming a tribally driven food system, the initiative supported a healthy and culturally vibrant Menominee Nation.

A public health approach to family support is needed to effectively address family stress and instability that is experienced by families in some of Milwaukee’s most vulnerable communities. Through this grant, the initiative ultimately aims to improve health outcomes for children by building an integrated system of prevention, intervention and treatment services to strengthen families and help reduce the disproportionate rates of African American children in the Milwaukee child welfare system.

The RHeSUS initiative seeks to close the substance misuse treatment gap by improving treatment and care for people struggling with substance use disorders in rural Wisconsin. The team aims to enhance the care delivery capacity of rural primary care clinics and hospitals and the availability of peer recovery support to rural residents. The team aims to enhance the care delivery capacity of rural primary care clinics and hospitals and the availability of peer recovery support to rural residents. This initiative supports a new collaboration between Wisconsin Voices for Recovery, academic partner Dr. Randall Brown, professor of family medicine, and the Wisconsin Hospital Association, which will leverage its network of health systems to facilitate this work.