Eaton Community Health

The Health care initiative (now called healthcomm) expanded to take on a focus of food security. Ech serves as catalyst and convener for strategy conversations among the leaders of both hospitals in Eaton county, as well as with the greater lansing food bank. Important steps were taken to define the scope of work ech can fund over the next year, related to access to healthy foods and increasing resident knowledge and access to resources for food handling, storing, and cooking healthy foods. By the end of the fiscal year, steps were in place to apply for grant funding and to add the Health department as an additional partner. Programs to improve security will launch in the next fiscal year.

Successful expansion of ech's humanserv initiative, focused on collaboration within the Eaton county human services collaborative council (hscc). During this fiscal year, ech served as a catalyst and convener for a team to lead a collective impact process. Based on the shared vision framework created last year, three action teams launched around priorities of meeting basic needs and improving residents' access to Health and human services. The new format for hscc tripled the level of engagement from the member agencies and their partners. Action teams set goals and report outcomes every 6-8 months.

Successful expansion of streetheart, ech's resident engagement program, designed to improve Health and well-being within the county, one neighborhood at a time. The pilot neighborhood work has continued to expand in several ways. The number of residents engaged in streetheart programs has increased. Neighbors participated in a collaborative neighborhood garden, setting the stage for a future location for a more permanent garden. A baseline survey of the neighborhood assessed well-being, pinpointing resident priorities to address the social determinants of Health. A resident leadership pathway was developed, called the streetheart neighborhood advisory crew. That crew helped to host the first neighborhood gathering, which sparked applications for additional resident mini-grants. The regional mobile Health clinic held an event in the streetheart neighborhood for the first time.

General program development and program services for collective impact across programs.