The Greater Rochester Health Foundation is committed to the use of evaluation for the primary purpose of learning among the Foundation’s staff and board members, grantees, partners, communities, and fields. We strive for evaluation and learning practices that generate actionable insights, support continuous improvement, and uphold principles of equity.
Over the past several years, the Greater Rochester Health Foundation has been actively working to better understand our privilege, the effects of white dominant culture on our organization, and the consequences of systemic racism on our region’s health outcomes. When the Black Agenda Group (BAG) launched the “Racism as a Public Health Crisis” declaration, it codified—in a series of profound statements—all the work we’ve been doing internally and provided an external vehicle to express our values. BAG leadership shared the declaration with us on May 19, 2020 and we formally signed on May 28. There was unanimous organizational support as the declaration aligned with our recently updated mission, and we encouraged board/ staff to sign as individuals to further extend our personal commitment to anti-racism.
The Health Foundation has been on a race-equity journey since 2016—providing support to St. Joseph’s Neighborhood Center to help launch their Structural Racism Initiative. We’ve supported staff who are pursuing a Diversity Professional Certification and have provided staff education on anti-racism, implicit bias, microaggressions, etc. through staff workshops and outside consultants. We have spent the past 1.5 years focused on diversifying our team to ensure a strong mix of experience (lived and professional) as well as representation from the many communities we serve. Throughout this process, we have been exploring and changing policies and practices to be a more equitable organization.
As our partners, your position to provide candid feedback about the program will help us fuel our continued efforts for improvement. Thank you to everyone who participated; we appreciate the honest and thoughtful responses. Click on the square to the right to view our response to the survey results. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at (585) 258-1703 or via email at hstark@thegrhf.org.
Improving quality and reducing the cost of health care were the motivations for a community effort to convert to an electronic system for recordkeeping and health information exchange.
The Process Prescription How the Business Community is helping local health care providers to improve efficiency, 2011
The residents of the Town of Galen, the Town of Savannah and the Village of Clyde are working to implement a grassroots, community-driven plan to create new opportunities for health improvement.
Barbara Zappia, MPA, Greater Rochester Health Foundation: Deborah Puntenney, Ph.D. Northwestern University, ABCD Institute; Lauren Snyder, RN, MPA, Our Town Rocks Project, S2AY Rural Health Network, January 2013
Helping people lead with their strengths: the new way forward for a healthier neighborhood, 2011
Bringing country neighbors together for good: A rural area built on its strengths and inspires healthy action, 2011
Asset Based Community Development, Deborah Puntenney, Ph.D. Northwestern University, ABCD Institute, March, 2011
Early childhood development is critical for later positive developmental, social, physical
health, and mental health outcomes (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2007).
On January 9, 2018, the Implementation Task Force hosted the Raising Resilience Summit at St. John Fisher College. The Summit brought together leaders from multiple professional disciplines to advance a comprehensive approach to promoting the social and emotional health of children and their families, and to plan and build cross-sector prevention actions. Materials from the Raising Resilience Summit are available on the Finger Lakes ACEs Connection website. The Finger Lakes ACEs Connection promotes a collaborative approach to raise awareness of adverse childhood experiences and drive sustainable systems change to impact community resiliency. We invite you to become members of this free online resource and post, share, learn and connect.
In late 2017, the Implementation Task Force started its efforts to help organizations become more trauma informed. Task Force members shared the “Taking Action: Building Resilience” presentation to encourage groups and organizations to become more trauma responsive through organizational self-assessments, training in trauma informed care and cultural humility, training in youth mental health first aid, and participation in school-based initiatives such as the Trauma, Illness and Grief Consortium.
Strategic Plan for the Prevention of Childhood Overweight and Obesity in Monroe County NY 2007-2017
In 2016, the Greater Rochester Health Foundation’s Commission on Children’s Behavioral Health in the Finger Lakes presented a report that identified gaps in behavioral health care for our region’s children. More than 150 community and health care leaders joined together to discuss the challenges facing our region’s children and how we can work together to make a difference. Read the compelling report: Crisis in Care.
Convened by the Greater Rochester Health Foundation, the Implementation Task Force is a group with representatives from a cross-sector of the community. The mission of the Implementation Task Force is to challenge the status quo and inspire action that will significantly improve the social and emotional health of children throughout the Greater Rochester Area. The Implementation Task Force has prioritized their initial focus on trauma response and prevention.
Early childhood experiences affect health, achievement, and well-being throughout life. Launched in 2017, Healthy Futures is a ten-year strategy to improve the health and well-being of children ages 0-8 in the Greater Rochester area. At the heart of the Healthy Futures strategy is whole child health—supporting children’s physical, cognitive, social, and emotional health by fostering healthy relationships, ensuring safe environments, cultivating skills and competencies, and building healthy habits.
As our grantees wrap up the work on their programs, we work with independent and objective outside evaluators to assess and determine each initiative’s impact. The Evaluation Reports are honest looks back at each program, documenting process results and outcomes and sharing lessons learned.
Launched in 2013, this innovative program was designed to help cardiac patients achieve success with their post-acute treatment regime, something that is especially important for older cardiac patients who are at an increased risk for complications.
In 2011, as a result of the growing refugee population, an innovative project launched to improve the quality of language interpretation services in healthcare facilities.
This 2010 project supported the work of senior-serving agencies in Monroe County to better identify and treat depression among older adults.
A program was funded in 2010 to improve the identification and treatment of patients at risk for depression at two community health centers.
