The United Teen Equality Center in Lowell, MA was recently awarded “Nonprofit Business of the Year” by the Greater Lowell Chamber of Commerce. What an honor for a grassroots agency that is less than 10 years old to be recognized for good business practices. And you won’t find any pinstripe suits there. UTEC lives by the credo “by teens, for teens,” involving at-risk youth in every aspect of their operations.
The Chamber’s award is an even greater achievement when you learn that several years ago some storeowners complained when UTEC established a temporary headquarters in the central business district. The retailers worried about the gang members and other youth hanging out on the sidewalk before some of their peacemaking sessions. “Businesses: Loitering teens are hurting us” read one headline. Read Best Practices to learn how UTEC turned the controversy into a community effort to help them acquire their own building, including editorials praising the agency for reducing gang violence.
Read more about UTEC's diverse youth development programs in Featured Projects. Theodore Edson Parker Foundation nominated The Streetworker Program for their 2003 LFP matching grant.
Return to top
Homeless Prenatal Program executive director Martha Ryan was recognized as the first honoree of the San Francisco Giants Community Fund's Isabelle Lemon Community Spirit Award. The award is given to an individual each year who steps up to create positive change in the communities in which they live and work. Read Ryan’s remarkable story of founding the Homeless Prenatal Program (HPP) in Volume VII of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Anthology.
HPP was a new organization when the San Francisco Foundation nominated them for their first grant from a national foundation: their 1992 LFP award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The grant supported their core work of providing outreach and case management services to homeless pregnant women.
The Knossos Foundation nominated HPP for their LFP award in 2000 to create an outreach project to help women in jail choose a healthy lifestyle when they return to the community by connecting them with services such as shelter, food, treatment programs, and health care.
Return to top
Penobscot Community Health Care's Community Clinics Project received a grant to replicate their program in a clinic located in a community housing project in Bangor, ME. The
Community Clinics Project provides integrated medical and mental health/substance abuse treatment to individuals who are homeless and at risk of being homeless in central/eastern Maine. Co-director Mary Jude, FNP-C, PA, MPH recently presented “Evidence-based Policy and Practice on Homelessness” during the American Public Health Association's 2007 Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. Read “On a Mission,” a story that shows how gently and respectfully the project staff helped a homeless man with schizophrenia.
The Bingham Program nominated Penobscot Community Health Care's Community Clinics Project for their 2005 LFP matching grant.
Return to top
Brookline Resilient Youth Team (BRYT) began at Brookline High School in Brookline, MA and has now been replicated at the high school in Wellesley, MA. Staff from the two schools teamed up to present the model at the national Conference on Advancing School Mental Health in Orlando, FL. The audience included people from Maine and Arkansas who expressed interest in replicating the program in their communities.
BRYT serves teens when they reenter high school after psychiatric hospitalization, out-of-control substance abuse or incarceration. Operating from a dedicated “home base” classroom, a team of school staff, mental health clinicians and substance abuse specialists support students to help prevent relapse. Read about their successful outcomes in their one-page report under LFP Graduate Projects Report.
Brookline Community Fund nominated Brookline Resilient Youth Team (BRYT) for their 2004 LFP matching grant.
Return to top
Love, Faith and Family - Amish Genetic Disease Education and Care - The US Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce honored project director Heng Wang, M.D., Ph.D. with the 2007 Excellence Award for his outstanding achievements in community service during the Celebr Asian ’07 Business Opportunity Conference in San Francisco, CA. Dr. Wang focuses on rare genetic and metabolic diseases that are rapidly increasing among Amish families. The project is located at Das Deutch Center for Special Needs Children and provides the early diagnosis and treatment that can greatly improve the quality of life for these vulnerable children and their families.
The Cleveland Foundation nominated Love, Faith and Family for their 2004 LFP matching grant.
Return to top
Wraparound Oregon in Portland, OR received the contract for Oregon's statewide children's wraparound initiative. Their proposal was a team approach that included Bruce Kamradt, director of Wraparound Milwaukee, an advisory committee of national finance and data experts, additional funding and a partnership with the Native American Rehabilitation Association (NARA) to ensure youth and family voice. This is a wonderful step in the process of statewide implementation of a children's mental health system of care.
Northwest Health Foundation nominated Wraparound Oregon for their 2005 LFP matching grant.
Return to top
Students Run Philly Style used their Robert Wood Johnson Foundation strategic communictions training to learn about "branding" their program. Their coach helped them create a new tagline "Go Farther." Then working with a designer when they got home to Philadelphia, the project leaders developed a new "look" for all of their materials. Their new logo looks so good: it won a design competition and will be published in the book "American Corporate Identity 2008." To learn more about the project's new communications efforts see "Crafting an e-Newsletter Campaign."
Indepencence Foundation nominated Students Run Philly Style for their 2004 LFP matching grant.
Return to top
Child
FIRST was one of the programs highlighted at the national policy summit, "In Our Own Backyards: Local Initiatives That Change Young Children's Lives." Sponsored by ZERO TO THREE, the summit focused on promising practices to build early childhood systems in communities; sharing lessons learned on planning, replication and funding; and exploring the connection between community initiatives and state and federal policies.
Child FIRST offers family-centered
mental health care to young inner city children with serious emotional
problems.
The Children's Fund of Connecticut,
Inc. nominated Child
FIRST Community Partnership for their 2005
LFP matching grant.
Return to top
Aging as Ourselves: the LGBT Senior Health Project will be one of six programs honored with the 2007 Innovation and Quality in Healthcare and Aging Award at the American Society on Aging and National Council on Aging joint conference March 7-10, 2007 in Chicago IL. Aging as Ourselves provides health and social services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) seniors in San Diego, CA with a strong collaboration among agencies that specialize in senior services and organizations that focus on serving the LGBT community.
San Diege Human Dignity Foundation nominated Aging as Ourselves for their 2005 LFP matching grant.
Return to top
The
Children's Advocacy Project in Casper, WY triumphed over thousands of applicants to receive a 2007 Monroe E. Trout Premier Cares Award recognizing community organizations that make a positive impact on health status of the medically underserved. In its four years the Children's Advocacy Project has served nearly 800 area children who have been the victims of sexual or physical assault. The project was awarded $26,000 and was chosen by a panel of health care executives on the basis of several factors including innovation and the possibility that it could be replicated in other communities.
Please go to Press Coverage to see the recent local newspaper and television feature stories about the project.
Wyoming Community Foundation served
as the nominating funder for the Children's Advocacy Project's 2003 LFP matching grant.
Return to top
The Healthy Lifestyles project in Poplarville, MS will be able to continue their Safe Harbor summer camp program in 2007 and to offer an after-school program thanks to a $500,000 grant from the National Recreation Foundation. Safe Harbor helps 
more than 2,000 children cope with the emotional scars and hardships left by Hurricane Katrina. It also incorporates many of the original Healthy Lifestyles objectives aimed at alleviating childhood obesity.
Lower Pearl River Valley Foundation
served as the nominating funder for the
Healthy Lifestyles project's 2005 LFP matching
grant.
Return to top
Return to In the Spotlight
