It’s hard to imagine what public health would look like around here without the Healthcare Foundation of Northern Sonoma County.
Though the Healdsburg-based nonprofit only has a full-time staff of five, it wields significant impact on medical services in this part of the county, especially in the areas of healthcare access, mental health, and early childhood development.
Most of the organization’s efforts benefit those members of our community for whom healthcare isn’t a given or guarantee.
And at a time when healthcare is more expensive than ever before, this assistance is critical.
The Foundation had quite a year in 2018. First and foremost, it raised $1.2 million to launch the Wildfire Mental Health Collaborative (WMHC), an exhaustive effort to provide mental health services to those impacted by the wildfires of October 2017.
According to CEO Debbie Mason, the effects of this program were staggering: The Foundation administered free services to more than 3,500 people through a new website, welcomed more than 800 people to free trauma-informed yoga, and gave more than 300 mental health therapists free training in crisis therapy.
“Part of what makes our work with the [WMHC] cool is that we’re not just responding to this disaster, but we’re also building community resiliency for the next disaster,” she said earlier this week.
But 2018 wasn’t only about helping wildfire victims. Last year the foundation also launched a push to attract and retain bilingual and bicultural mental health professionals for the community at large—a campaign dubbed the Mental Health Talent Pipeline. The Healthcare Foundation also started fundraising to improve early childhood development programs in North County.
Looking forward to 2019, the plan is to extend and amplify actions in all these areas.
Yes, Mason said, the Foundation will seek to raise another $500,000-$750,000 to fund the WMHC for 12 more months. But equally important will be efforts to support other mental health programs in area clinics and schools, as well as moves to launch new early childhood initiatives.
The Foundation also will address its core mission of making sure low-income families have access to health care, and it will look into funding preventative strategies for improving the overall health of North County residents. Mason said the organization has identified high blood pressure and diabetes as targets for the focus on preventative care.
“What can we do to increase community fitness and overall health?” she asked. “We want to take a look at what we can be doing on the community-wide level to increase nutrition and food security.”
Overall, the Healthcare Foundation of Northern Sonoma County operates with a relatively modest budget—in 2018 it was $2.4 million but usually lands somewhere between $1.5 and $2.0 million. That means the organization can use all the help it can get. The health of our community depends on it.
Matt Villano is a local writer and editor. He writes about good people doing great things in the community. Learn more about him at whalehead.com.
URL for the Healthcare Foundation is http://www.healthcarefoundation.net
