Gwinnett Coalition

Helpline - social workers, counselors, and other officials recognize that the social and emotional needs of students and their families have a significant impact on students' learning and behavior and that school officials often expend significant time helping families obtain help tailored to their needs. The helpline is an information and referral (i & r) service with a long history of connecting individuals with community-based programs and services to assist with identified needs. The gcps helpline program helps school officials access this information such that students' learning is supported and gcps staff time is utilized more efficiently. In fy2022, the public helpline provided 34,421 referrals and the gcps helpline provided 4,135 referrals.

Mental and behavioral health - resilient Gwinnett is a community-based approach to trauma prevention and intervention and a community-wide effort designed to prevent and heal adverse childhood experiences. Key aspects include (1) building awareness and a common understanding about adversity and resilience in our community; (2) building capacity through trainings that promote trauma-informed practices across all sectors; and (3) influencing systems change by creating an integrated, behavioral system of care for individuals 0-26 years of age. In 2022, 1,184 individuals engaged 87 evidence-based trainings.

Health equity - increasing access to affordable, quality healthcare resources and empowering residents to self-advocate through health literacy education are essential to advancing health equity. Gwinnetthealthfinder.org (ghf) is an online tool that allows users to quickly locate affordable health care providers by city, zip code or service category, including adult, pediatric, mental health, dental and specialty care. The resource features qualified health centers; community service boards; public health department(s); nonprofit hospitals; nonprofit community health centers; or private practices that accept medicaid, medicare, peachcare for kids, sliding scale fee, self-pay or alternate forms of payment. Users are also able to search for telemedicine services to help those who are unable to travel. The Gwinnett health equity fund helps cover the cost of healthcare services for uninsured and underinsured residents. Donations help cover the cost of mental and physical healthcare services through partnerships with ghf service providers. Community outreach at 111 unique events resulted in thousands of residents receiving free vaccines, covid-19 test kits, educational information, and other no-cost resources.