Program areas at Gwinnett Coalition
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. In 2023, there were 3,072 ghf search sessions. Community outreach occurred at 167 unique events and resulted in 12,046 residents receiving free vaccines, covid-19 test kits, educational information, and/or receiving other no-cost resources.
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 fy2023, the public helpline provided 11,827 referrals and the gcps helpline provided 2,275 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 2023, 3,781 individuals participated in 203 evidence-based trainings.