NEWS

Addressing children’s mental health

OneCranston Health Equity Zone receives $250,000 grant

Posted 3/16/22

By EMMA BARTLETT

Connecting community members to each other and helping people  access resources is part of OneCranston Health Equity Zone’s goal. The organization recently received a …

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NEWS

Addressing children’s mental health

OneCranston Health Equity Zone receives $250,000 grant

Posted

By EMMA BARTLETT

Connecting community members to each other and helping people  access resources is part of OneCranston Health Equity Zone’s goal. The organization recently received a $250,000 grant from the Rhode Island Foundation to improve behavioral health services for the city’s children. With the funding, OneCranston Health Equity Zone will open a family support center at 70 Gansett Street; they plan to have a drop-in activities week in April to welcome families to the new center.

OneCranston Health Equity Zone is a resident-driven initiative funded by the Rhode Island Department of Health to address the root causes of health disparities within Cranston. The organization advocates and collaborates with residents to develop policies and programs that make the city healthier and more equitable.

According to CranstonOne Equity Zone’s press release, the center will provide “a wide range of resources and services, including evidence-based parenting education and support, which will offer tools for building a foundation for emotionally healthy children and adolescents, and their families.” The Comprehensive Community Action Program will facilitate the work and work and seek to improve the behavioral health of Cranston children and adolescents.

“These are extraordinarily stressful times for so many people in our state. Existing behavioral health challenges have been exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19. These grants focus on addressing disparities in access to behavioral health services and substance use treatment that are having a disproportionate impact on marginalized communities, including communities of color,” said Neil D. Steinberg, the Rhode Island Foundation’s president and CEO in a March 4 announcement.

The foundation’s grant will last for two years, and the organization would like to make this a long term initiative, and is looking for ways to make the center self sustainable after the funding’s use.

For the new center, OneCranston Health Equity Zone created a planning committee of ten individuals – including Cranston community members – to determine what the community needs are and how they can be addressed. While the organization is making sure their programs follow the grant’s behavioral health component, the planning board is looking to include ideas of community, connection and strength into the center’s vision.

Sarah Cote, initiative director of OnceCranston Health Equity Zone, said the organization is still figuring out the center’s days/hours of operation, but said they are looking to be open Monday through Saturday.

“The goal is to promote responsive, strength-based parenting and reduce the incidence and impacts of adverse childhood experiences that often accompany family challenges such as mental health, domestic violence, substance use and instability, all of which have been worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Cote. “This builds on our priorities around youth opportunity and community trauma.”

OneCranston Health Equity Zone was one of seven organizations to receive funding from the Rhode Island Foundation to improve behavioral health services across the state. According to OneCranston’s press release, recipients were selected based on how well they brought together clinical and community-based organizations, engaged residents, proposed measuring outcomes and leveraged other funding or in-kind support.

“We sought place-based initiatives that will bring together partners that have a shared vision and action plan to address the crucial social determinants of health,” Steinberg said.

The Rhode Island Foundation is the largest and most comprehensive funder of nonprofit organizations in Rhode Island.

children, mental health

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