Grant Type: Community Grant

This grant has ended. Urban Triage has received an award for a project to support Black youth who have been disproportionality impacted during the pandemic. Their project will expand its transformative educational workgroup model to include access to telehealth resources and establish a youth-centered Hip Hop Based Educational (HHBE) workgroup to promote healing, resilience, self-esteem and connection. It will also support Black youth by providing training for existing social and emotional healthcare providers in the community through its Co-Conspirator workgroups. The partners will evaluate the impacts of services on adolescent mental health and well-being to inform sustainability and replication of workgroups.

This project will use family resource and support specialists to promote infant health and safety, and address parental mental and physical health, family needs and risk factors that contribute to abuse and neglect in Door County.

Lilada’s Livingroom, which provides culturally competent services to Black women and girls, sought to create a virtual safe space for Black girls between the ages of 10 and 17 who are at high risk for suicide and sexual abuse. The project aimed to create a positive online community focused on trauma healing through podcasts, videos and other forms of creative expression like art and poetry. Lilada’s Livingroom successfully launched 50 episodes of a podcast called “Defending Black Girlhood.” Three affirmation, journaling and coloring books that celebrate Black girls were also published and distributed for free within the Madison community.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges across communities, and transmission among underserved communities, such as people experiencing homelessness added complexity to the response. The goal of this project was to reduce the spread of COVID-19 at Porchlight Men’s Emergency Shelter by using an innovative technology-enabled solution of virtual volunteer nurses from Nurse Disrupted, LLC to screen all guests safely and accurately each day prior to admission to the homeless shelter sites. This project was successfully completed as the technology was developed and implemented. The technology solution had a 100 percent adoption rate, and surveys of guests and staff demonstrated high satisfaction with the telehealth service.

The original aim of this project was to address the health inequities of lead exposure and lead poisoning in the Metcalfe Park neighborhood in Milwaukee. However, the grant was reallocated to respond to the immediate needs of the community during the COVID-19 crisis.

Through the WeRISE Black Birth Workers Response to COVID-19 pilot program, the African American Breastfeeding Network (AABN) partnered with Black doulas and Black birth workers to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among Black/African American families across Southeastern Wisconsin, specifically in Milwaukee, Racine, and Kenosha counties. The grant team sought to provide culturally-appropriate services, information, and resources to 100 pregnant African American birthing persons, reduce the incidence of the COVID-19 infection and spread, and reduce risk of maternal and infant complications. The grant team successfully served 90 women through the WeRISE pilot program and a majority of the mothers expressed high levels of satisfaction with the services provided, doula communication and skills, COVID-19 information and resources, and the program overall. The team identified, interviewed, and recruited 25 Black women who were trained and certified as doulas and were subsequently matched with the mothers enrolled in the program. Additionally, they created and disseminated a two tier COVID-19 Emergency Tool Kit, as well as Postpartum Healing Kits to support mothers’ needs after birth.

This project aimed to promote equitable health care for transgender, gender nonbinary, gender expansive, and gender nonconforming (TNG) individuals by increasing access to affordable and competent sexual and reproductive healthcare services through health care work force training and patient material improvement. The project accomplished its goal through several key approaches that included focused training for health center and administrative staff and the establishment of a community advisory group to provide input on patient education materials, communication and other resources.

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.