Hello Naimah -
I hope this email finds you well, and that what I'm sharing will be a help to you as you prepare information for the Bids process. I am hoping we have more information for you in the coming days. For now, though, as I said in the prior email, we don't have outcomes data per se. There's not a metric showing that we've increased school attendance, prevented expulsions, or that we've reduced visits to the Emergency Room in the six counties where we are doing the work.
We do have information on trainings given and planned, events that have occurred and that are planned, blog posts, meetings, participation, and presentations. I hope this will help.
Please know that we are well into the work and are "in a groove" with the counties, having established strong and supportive relationships, a rhythm of the meetings and trainings, a trust in the work and our intentions. We have talked up Healthy Blue as our benefactor to each community as well as with the North Carolina Department of Social Services, the Guardian ad Litem program in participating counties, and, most importantly: to the members of the cross-sector community initiatives where we are doing the work.
There has been a lot of good will fostered for this program.
We would love to do more publicity on this project, and to share the original press release on it. To that end we'd also love to have some Healthy Blue artwork, if possible, so we can add your brand to the materials.
I will be inviting you to the "proof in the pudding" community page on PACEs Connection for the Healthy Blue Initiative. We are still populating the page with blog posts from the six counties, as well as calendar events, presentations and trainings. IF I could walk you through the page (this is a private community so if there are others you'd like to invite to see it, please let me know) I would love to give you and your partners a tour of the page and how we see it evolving over time. We will also be changing the name from HB to Healthy Blue.
Attached you'll find the initial report of Kelly Purcell, whom we hired as the paid communities' manager to work 10 - 15 hours per week to help build the communities; create the relationships with DSS workers, caregivers, families, children; and to find the events we can "dovetail" into (health fairs and such) where we can make connections to families, and publicize and offer trainings.
There is more information to be posted to the page, including some videos and resources. This is a start. We'd love to know what else you'd like to see!
Thank you again for your help and this partnership. As stated in the prior email, I need to have a conversation with you about the additional two communities for the Coop. You have funded two more communities and the two we had planned on having come into the program have had some difficulties: one had disbanded; the second has been challenged by decision-making. There are two communities I would like to offer as alternatives if we could meet soon to discuss them.
Good luck with your report tomorrow. I am available now and all night tonight if you want to discuss this, find out more, need any support whatsoever.
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