Facilitating effective community-based care coordination to enhance health outcomes, strengthening behavioral health systems of care, and advancing public health strategies for mental wellbeing.

In response to the dramatic increases in mental health challenges and severity among young people, AHF is providing leadership and funding in three specific areas:

• Addressing issues related to smart phone/social media use among young people and the strong correlation with dramatic increases in anxiety and depression.
• Investing in systems-change solutions to clinical care pathways that can increase quality, effectiveness and access to behavioral healthcare.
• Working with regional leaders and experts to better understand the current and potential youth behavioral health ecosystem, and identify core priorities for advocacy and investment.

Neighborhood Networks, an initiative of the San Diego Wellness Collaborative, has achieved financial sustainability since our initial pilot grant in 2019. Neighborhood Networks serves as a “hub” that connects healthcare and community-based organizations. They contract with partner organizations and provide a variety of management services, including specialized training for Neighborhood Navigators (CHWs/Promotores de salud). Read more.

There are several exciting opportunities on the horizon in California to change how care is delivered, including a five-year transformation within the Medi-Cal program (known as CalAIM). CalAIM is designed to advance equitable, coordinated and person-centered approaches to care delivery, along side of a new Medi-Cal benefit to reimburse for services provided by Community Health Workers (CHWs). To scale and sustain this critically important CHW workforce here in San Diego, we partnered with the California Health Care Foundation to co-fund a cohort of local community-based organizations to support their ability and efforts to engage with managed care plans in the region to implement this new CHW benefit.