Home / Health in a New Key / Community Explorer Grants

Health in a New Key

Community Explorer Grants

Key Explorer Partnership Grants provide "seed capital" to communities that have identified a significant health issue and are developing a strength-based response.

Leveraging integrated health methods

COMMUNITY ALLIANCE FOR COMPREHENSIVE CANCER PREVENTION, TREATMENT AND RESPONSE/THE WELLNESS COMMUNITY
The goal of this program is to clearly identify the universe of cancer support resources, to address redundancies and gaps, and to leverage all community resources to comprehensively address prevention, treatment, and recovery. Ultimately, TWC will create The Community Alliance by tapping the strengths of the community and leveraging connections

The Wellness Community recognizes psychosocial support as the “other half” of cancer treatment – that health is indeed the harmonious integration of mind, body and spirit – and knows the crucial role members of the cancer community play. TWC is working to secure the social connectedness of the network that helps prevent, treat and respond to cancer in Arizona.

For more information contact Paula Hardison at phardison@twccaz.org.

Focusing on unique talents and gifts

COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS INITIATIVE
The Community Connections Initiative is a partnership with ASU College of Nursing, Value Options and the Tempe Municipal Mental Health Court. The partnership will identify the strengths and assets of individuals with serious mental illness, and facilitate connections within Tempe that will utilize the skills and talents of these individuals and truly integrate them into the fabric of the community. The process will reveal a strength-based model to demonstrate how individuals with serious mental illness can become valuable assets in any community.

The unique talents and gifts of individuals can and always should be tapped to produce helpful connections and positive emotional resources that help integrate these individuals into our community.

For more information contact Dr. Judith Pickens at Judith.pickens@asu.edu.

Leveraging social capital

MATFORCE
The Methamphetamine Task Force (MATForce) grew out of a shared sense of urgency regarding the proliferation of methamphetamine use and its impact on health and health care in Yavapai County; and most importantly, an understanding that nothing short of a community-wide effort would significantly impact its prevention, interdiction and treatment. The goals of the partnership are to develop a consensus methamphetamine intervention model, to identify “resilience factors” through the eyes and experience of those who have achieved sustained recovery, and to incorporate “resilience building” activities and information into existing health care protocols and judicial interventions.

The West Yavapai Guidance Clinic (WYGC) will leverage the entire reservoir of available social capital – legal/judicial, recovering persons, treatment providers, friends and family – to reduce the production, availability and use of methamphetamine. The eyes and ears of persons who have achieved sustained recovery will be central; the capacity of the community to carry those experiences forward as solutions will define success.

For more information contact Laura Norman at lauran.WYGC@narbha.org.

Weaving a stronger future through engagement

NORTHERN APACHE COUNTY SPECIAL HEALTH CARE DISTRICT
The newly re-opened Sanders Clinic will serve as a center for community health and also as a provider of primary medical services. In response to a community assessment that identified the need for mental health services, substance abuse services, diabetic and obesity education and outreach to teens who are engaging in early sexual behaviors and substance abuse, the new family nurse practitioner will partner with the school and community members to engage 6th – 8th grade girls in a “traditional” program to help them make healthy lifestyle choices. The community will receive training and consultation from the University of Minnesota National Resilience Resource Center that has done extensive work with American Indian communities. The Center will work with the nurse practitioner, the mentors and the girls in the design and implementation of the program.

For more information contact John King at

Tapping the trust and resonance of peers

OSHER LIFELONG LEARNING INSTITUTE – (OLLI)
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), the Resilience Solutions Group (RSG) and the Center for Nonprofit Leadership and Management will partner with Interfaith Community Care to tap the trust and resonance of peers and share keys to community strengths among older adults. The will teach healthy older adults how to model resilience skills for their less robust peers. Echoing the paradigm shift from illness and losses associated with aging to a ‘successful aging’ perspective that emphasizes lifelong learning and compensation for losses, this project posits resilience as a set of skills that can be learned – and taught – by older adults.

For more information contact Dr. Morris Okun at okun@asu.edu.