Program areas at CPEHN
For nearly 30 years, CPEHN has been at the forefront of passing, changing, and implementing policies that reflect community needs for better health. With our community partners across the State, we have engaged hundreds of advocates for policy change through letters, testimonies, educational visits, and media advocacy. At the core of our work are our partnerships with community organizations and coalitions that we convene to leverage our work and enhance our capacity to mobilize for policy change. We work with four statewide networks: The Having Our Say coalition (HOS), which convenes grassroots, direct services, and immigrant rights organizations that serve diverse communities of color and immigrant communities in California; The Behavioral Health Equity Collaborative (BHEC), which convenes state and local organizations serving the mental health needs of immigrants, refugees, youth, LGBTQ, and people of color; the California Oral Health Progress and Equity Network (CA-OPEN) connects local and State organizations working together to ensure that good oral health care is a right for all Californians; and the Public Health Collaborative, which organizes around the implementation of equitable COVID-19 recovery policy that fosters local relief in the areas of disease containment, mental health, housing, and food security. CPEHN works with these networks to educate stakeholders and empower them to advance a health equity policy agenda via legislative and administrative advocacy, connecting them to key decision-makers so they can make their voices heard. We also work with these networks to identify issues for further research and publish policy reports and recommendations based on our findings to educate community partners and decision-makers about the health care needs of communities of color and health equity-focused solutions to these issues. To achieve these goals, CPEHN worked closely with its networks to mobilize community members and conduct advocacy to advance its policy agenda, which focused on improving access to affordable, timely, and high quality oral, mental and primary care and ensuring that state and county resources are funding the community supports and infrastructure needed to build healthy communities. Working hand in hand with our partners, we provided technical assistance and training to our local partners on policy analysis, state budget and legislative processes, and advocacy strategies to amplify their voices, ensuring that local communities can make their voices heard by policymakers.