CAMPAIGNS
Health4all
THE LEARNING COMMUNITY
The Health Equity Learning Community members are part of an amazing collective led by our Access to Quality Healthcare Action Team. This group of nearly 30 partners, resident leaders, and health system administrators, is united in finding lasting racial equity strategies that ensure access to care for those who remain uninsured, and reduce barriers to accessing health services for all residents of Contra Costa County.
10 Community Health Advocates came together with 35 health system administrators and health providers to discuss approaches, strategies, and best practices being used to reduce barriers to accessing care for West Contra Costa residents at multiple Health Equity Dine and Learn sessions, Quarterly Health Equity Learning Sessions and a community-led Marketing Team led by LifeLong Medical Care.
Barriers to accessing care in healthcare systems must be removed through collaboration between health care systems and community. Health Equity points to shared accountability; be more specific about types of systemic barriers and be strategic about which ones can be reasonably reduced by health care systems with communities leading the way.
#OneContraContraCosta Coalition
Excluding groups from health coverage based on circumstances like lacking immigration status doesn’t make sense, nor does it reflect the collective values of our community. Over the past several years, the #OneContraCosta campaign has worked to gain the support of county residents, local organizations working in the community, and key decision makers in expanding health coverage for those who will remain uninsured, regardless of immigration status. The task force is dedicated to working with the community clinics and healthcare providers who help Contra Costa families every day, ensure access to essential services like doctor’s visits, health education, and preventative care.
The voice of CARES participants have been lifted in policy meetings, 1:1 meetings with individual County Supervisors and at the Board of Supervisor meetings. The narrative of the impact of receiving CARES services will be covered in public testimony and various media platforms. ACCE is the lead partner in engaging its members countywide.
Immigrant families will be acknowledged as valuable members of our county’s community that deserve the right to basic health care. #OneContraCosta, Health4All and Health is a Human Right are all narratives that we continue to lift up.
Economic Justice
This campaign focuses on adults facing barriers to employment in Richmond by engaging residents as consultants to the City on issues such as transportation, job retention, and equitable housing development. This campaign is anchored by the City of Richmond’s LEAP department, City Manager’s Office, UC Berkeley’s Center for Cities & Schools, SparkPoint, Rubicon and the Healthy Richmond staff.
YPlan Resident Leaders serve as researchers, consultants and experts of their neighborhoods and the community of Richmond. We see YPlan alumni as leaders ready to continue their work as employees of the City, Community Based Organizations and other organizations in the City of Richmond.
Adults facing barriers to employment in Richmond have additional career pathways and improve the quality of life for other residents through urban planning. YPlan alumni serve as resident leaders and consultants bringing their perspective on racial equity principles and practices.
GARE
City of Richmond Governing Alliance for Racial Equity is an effort led by city staff to bring racial equity to the various City departments. Healthy Richmond is collaborating with the City by introducing the Equity-based Principles and Strategies: Economic Revitalization of Richmond, California platform that is an overview of community-owned principles and practices collectively held and employed by more than a dozen community stakeholders, in partnership with Healthy Richmond to advance “equity in all policies” related to the economic revitalization of Richmond, CA. The platform focuses on Authentic Community Engagement, Comprehensive Workforce Development, and Equitable Physical Development. We are also collaborating with the City to mobilize residents and organizations to come out for Community Forums to comment on the draft City GARE 5-year plan.. We are lifting up the work being done by local partners and resident leaders and advocating for authentic resident engagement and shared decision-making.
Adults facing barriers to employment in Richmond have additional career pathways and improve the quality of life for other residents through urban planning. YPlan alumni serve as resident leaders and consultants bringing their perspective on racial equity principles and practices.
NRQOL
The future of communities like North Richmond are normally the results of plans made by elected officials and Real Estate Developers. North Richmond resident leaders have taken a bold step to declare their aspirations for the future of the community they live in and care about deeply. Current and former residents have sought to participate in and influence the planning and development process for their neighborhood. The product of these efforts is a shared vision for the future of the North Richmond community. This Quality of Life Plan is a practical roadmap for the implementation of future development in the Neighborhood. The Quality of Life Plan process was initiated when community members learned that the Housing Authority of the County of Contra Costa sought to redevelop the historical affordable housing project, Las Deltas, which sits in the heart of the community. While this is an opportunity for improving the living conditions of the unincorporated neighborhood, residents are acutely aware of the threat of gentrification and Displacement.
The North Richmond Resident Leadership Team (NR RLT) is 10 residents of the neighborhood representing the diversity of the neighborhood. By learning, organizing, and advocating together, RLT members became a source of strength for each other, incorporating a healthy feedback structure to strengthen the work, and connecting with each other on a personal level, creating a sense of family. The underlying value of this work— the belief that residents should have the voice and power to determine their destiny by leading efforts to address community concerns – served as a guidepost throughout the implementation process. Centering the “why” of the work helped Healthy Richmond navigate through challenges and gave them a roadmap for healthy leadership development and decision making.
The North Richmond Resident Leadership Team (NR RLT) is 10 residents of the neighborhood representing the diversity of the neighborhood. By learning, organizing, and advocating together, RLT members became a source of strength for each other, incorporating a healthy feedback structure to strengthen the work, and connecting with each other on a personal level, creating a sense of family. The underlying value of this work— the belief that residents should have the voice and power to determine their destiny by leading efforts to address community concerns – served as a guidepost throughout the implementation process. Centering the “why” of the work helped Healthy Richmond navigate through challenges and gave them a roadmap for healthy leadership development and decision making.
RMAP
East Bay Center for the Performing Arts is the lead partner in the development of a printed and digital map telling the story of Richmond from the perspective of people living here. The Richmond Living Map (Add embedded link of RMap visual from resources sheet) is both art and artifact, merging the tangible worlds of the maps with the experiential worlds of community performances and original compositions created to represent places on the map.
Youth have been at the forefront of consulting on what places and spaces are highlighted on the map. There have been 3 versions and the 2019 version incorporated school sites and a scavenger hunt designed by the youth.
This project is the signature Narrative Change project for Healthy Richmond partnership! It has been printed and distributed to the community and the goal is to also have an online version that is interactive. Community members will be able to look at site websites, hear & see resident testimonials on the impact of a site, and see photos.
Education Equity
Local Control Funding Formula: High-need students receive targeted student support services so that they become achieving students.
The LCAP Parent Group formed around the intention of creating an educational tool for parents, by parents, to help families in WCCUSD understand what the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) and the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) really are, and how they can get involved. The team has spent the last year developing a detailed curriculum providing information on the LCFF and LCAP and how it impacts individual school sites, as well as workshop activities to help parents build the skills they need to interact with school site and district staff. The first phase of the project also included the production of a video featuring parent leaders, community members, and WCCUSD Superintendent Mathew Duffy raising a call to action for parents to “get involved!” As a result of this project , 10 schools sites in the district served as hosts for community training sessions with the goal of bringing important tools and connections to families so that they can be deeply involved with how district funding is spent for their children.
Youth & Parent Engagement & Power: Creating a MultiGeneral Approach for Advocating for Education Equity
YES Nature to Neighborhoods has contributed to the collaborative resident leadership & organizing multiple Resident Leadership Retreats to bring Richmond residents together, foster a sense of connection and common cause, and inspire and empower residents to shape the future of Healthy Richmond’s work and sustainability. Through facilitated team-building as well as conversations based in race equity, music, food, and community-building. The Schools & Neighborhoods Action Team (SNAT) is centered around Youth & Parent leadership. The SNAT LCAP platform and campaign goals are driven by their leadership insights and policy recommendations. SNAT has also funded parent events focused on Participatory Budgeting processes, resident designed LCAP community video and curriculum to engage more parents, celebrating parent leadership, awareness & involvement of parents in school site councils and aligning the SNAT with WCCUSD DLCAPS and other Parent Advisory groups (PACLC: MDAC/AASAT/CAC)
Positive School Climate
In the late summer and fall of 2017, WCCUSD also engaged in community discussions with a host of parents, students, teachers, and advocates about Positive School Climate. These discussions, which began initially about willful defiance suspensions, evolved into a larger discussion about student rights, health and restorative justice, and the role of police and other security measures on campus. The discussions aligned with the larger conversation about the School-To-Prison pipeline and #SchoolsNotPrisons advocacy. In the fall, the WCCUSD board passed a sweeping resolution for positive climate policies dealing with a range of issues, with significant advocacy by SNAT, RYSE Center, Bay Area Legal Aid, and the community at large. Several members of the LCAP parent leadership group also lead the District’s Advisory Committees such as DLCAPS, AASAT, and MDAC.
In our SNAT collective space, Youth and Parent leaders are an active part of all of the campaigns! Their tagline from the beginning of this campaign area has been #We are the Experts! After several years of education justice work, youth and adults are now at the decision making tables as district advisory committees and school site councils.
The key narratives in this campaign area has included #WeAreTheExperts to call out that Youth & Parents are the experts of what is needed to achieve education equity, the Expert5 is a team of district committee leaders designing self-organized efforts to develop recommendations on issues such as LCAP, district budget reductions, and institutionalizing a new framework Spectrum of Community Engagement to Community Ownership. A second narrative used in SNAT’s policy advocacy work has been Engaged Communities, Transparent Schools.
Healthy Richmond Partner Coalitions
Contra Costa County Racial Justice Coalition: Services not Cells and Decarceration
The CCRJC, part of the California Endowments “Northern Regional Narrative” project, is a coalition of organizations and individuals committed to eliminating racial inequalities in Contra Costa County and beyond. Their work has been centered in achieving justice for families connected to the county’s criminal justice system. Through the work of the coalition, a major jail expansion was blocked, funds from state measure AB109 are being directed into needed services for residents re-entering the community, and policies around bail fees and other systemic barriers to families have been addressed. The coalition continues to organize and hold policy makers and administrators accountable to the need for justice in our community. Other Partners working on Community Safety are
Safe Return Project- Community Organizing and Capacity Building, Policy advocacy at County level for Criminal Justice Reform and Reinvestment of Prevention Services for the most impacted populations
ACCE-Community Organizing and Capacity Building, Policy Advocacy at County level for Criminal Justice Reform and Reinvestment of Prevention Services for the most impacted populations
RYSE Center – Trauma Informed Care, Juvenile Justice Reform, Education Justice and Youth Organizing
Catholic Charities– Restorative Justice in the Schools
Rubicon -Community Connections
IYC The Invest in Youth Coalition
IYC The Invest in Youth Coalition is a citywide coalition of youth, individuals, community based organizations and funders working to make Richmond a youth, young adult and family friendly city. The Coalition aims to: Identify and agree on priorities for youth and young adults in Richmond; Secure a fund that serves the explicit needs of children and youth in the City of Richmond as outlined by a Children’s Budget: Richmond Fund for Children and Youth; (this is the priority for 2016) and Create opportunities for young people to influence decision-makers on the needs and priorities of children and youth in the City of Richmond. Partners: RYSE Center, Community Health for Asian Americans, The Ed Fund, East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, Healthy Richmond, Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), Youth Enrichment Strategies, Education Matters, Mindful Life Project, Funding the Next Generation, Pogo Park, Building Blocks for Kids. Additional Endorsers: Supervisor John Gioia, Urban Tilth, California School-Based Health Alliance, Students for Education Reform, Shields-Reid Residents Neighborhood Council, Teachers 4 Social Justice, CBE Action.
The Department and Fund for Children and Youth was created in order to provide a sustainable funding stream for youth-serving organizations in Richmond and North Richmond. This will be done by providing grant funding to various organizations serving Richmond and North Richmond youth under the age of 24. The first grants will be distributed by July 2021.
The Department of Children and Youth has appointed youth and parent leaders to the Richmond Fund for Children and Youth Oversight Board. This 15-person Oversight Board will guide the development of a community needs assessment, a strategic investment plan, and the allocation of funds for chosen youth-serving organizations.
