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• Let Us Know Your Thoughts - Take Part in the 2019 Community Health Assessment

  Health and wellness matters to everyone. That's why health care and community organizations in the MetroWest region are coming together to plan how health and wellness programs can best serve area residents, and we want you to be part of that planning.

   

  We are asking residents who live or work in the communities listed below to give us your feedback and suggestions about health services and issues in the region by completing a short 10 minute survey. All responses are completely anonymous. There are no right or wrong answers; it's your opinions that matter!

   

  To take part, just click on one of the following links:

   

  IN ENGLISH:  www.surveymonkey.com/r/2019CHA-Eng

   EN ESPAÑOL:  www.surveymonkey.com/r/2019CHA-Spa

   EM PORTUGUÊS: www.surveymonkey.com/r/2019CHA-Por

   

  If you've already filled out the survey, please forward the link to friends and colleagues.

  
  

  Thank you for your participation!
  

• Trustees and Committee Members spend a "Day in the Field"

  It is common for foundation staff to conduct site visits to grantees, but for trustees and members of the foundation's grantmaking committees, getting to see programs up close can be difficult due to work and family commitments. To bridge that gap, the foundation annually conducts "day in the field" visits, inviting trustees and committee members to join the staff as they visit grantee programs.

  Last month, our day in the field included visits to Behavioral Health Partners of MetroWest, which provides a single point of entry to a broad range of behavioral health and social services in the region; Health Care Without Walls, which provides preventative nursing care to residents of area family shelters; and Jeff's Place, which provides comprehensive bereavement support services for children and their families.

  The visits not only helped us to see first hand the wonderful array of services and benefits being provided by these organizations, but it also helped to identify some of the difficulties that these agencies face as they seek to grow and sustain their work in the region.  Our thanks to the leadership of these agencies for making time available for our visit, and to our trustees and committee members who joined in us for the day!

• Be Part of the Foundation's Work

  The foundation is looking for a full-time Policy Analyst.

  This individual will support the work of the foundation by reviewing current policy and programmatic research and data in key areas important to the foundation's strategic goal of implementing cross-cutting and integrated approaches focused on building resilient, healthy and equitable communities.

  The Policy Analyst will work with staff and community partners to develop strategies for communicating and disseminating knowledge derived from their research and lessons learned from the foundation's initiatives so as to amplify and advance their impact across the region.

  Want to know more? Check out the employment opportunities  page of our website.

• Congratulations to our 2018 MetroWest Health Leadership Program Graduates

  Difficulty recruiting and retaining staff, budget cuts, federal policy changes that undermine client service, less charitable giving and increased competition for funds -these are just some of the issues that our Class of 2018 confronted in their final class presentations.  But armed with new knowledge and skills gleaned from the six-month MetroWest Health Leadership Program, they made convincing arguments to foundation staff on how they would deal with these and other issues as leaders of nonprofit agencies.

   

  Having aced the final, the class retreated to John Harvard's for a graduation party, complete with diplomas!  Senior Program Officer Rebecca Donham called the class, "an amazing group of professionals that jelled from the very beginning." One graduate said, "The program exceeded my expectations, especially in terms of the quality of the faculty, the depth of the presentations and the applicability to my work."

   

  We salute our new graduates:

   

  Amanda Coughlin, MSW Director, Program Operations Jewish Family Service of MetroWest	Kelly Joseph, MS Program Coordinator Framingham Health Department
  Melicia DaCosta, MS Community Health Worker Supervisor Kennedy Community Health Center	Margaretta Kroeger, Esq Staff Attorney MetroWest Legal Services
  Catherine Delano, MPH Senior Substance Use Prevention Coord. Needham Health Department	Adriane Queiroz, MPH Program Manager Latino Health Insurance Program
  Christine Guthery, JD Founder and Executive Director SPARK Kindness	Hope Rochefort, MPH Productivity Manager Double Gemini
  Jacob Hanson, MEd McKinney-Vento Clinical Care Coord. Framingham Public Schools	Catherine Sugarman, MA Prevention and Outreach Program Mgr. Town of Natick

   

  Interested in joining the class of 2019? Click here to read more about the MetroWest Health Leadership program.    

• Announcing the MetroWest Health Equity Award!

  The MetroWest Health Foundation is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2019. As one way to commemorate the work that has been done over the past 20 years, the foundation, in partnership with the MetroWest Racial and Ethnic Disparities Workgroup, is offering the first Annual Health Equity Award.

   

  The MetroWest area is one of the healthiest regions in one of the healthiest states in the country. Yet inequities still exist based on race/ethnicity as well as economic status. There are many in our community working everyday for equity. The Health Equity Award recognizes an individual or organization that has had a significant impact in addressing health inequities in the region.

   

  To find out more about the award or to nominate a person or organization that you think deserves this recognition, click here.

• MA DPH updates the number of opioid-related overdose deaths by town for 2015

  Earlier this month the Massachusetts Department of Public Health issued an updated count of confirmed unintentional/undetermined opioid-related deaths by Massachusetts communities. 

  Click here to obtain the latest numbers for MetroWest communities.