Implementing innovative strategies to improve health care access and equity in the northland
Generations Health Care Initiatives is a private, non-profit foundation dedicated to engaging the community to improve health for all, especially underserved populations. Our primary geographic service area is Duluth, Minnesota and surrounding area.
Through a variety of research methods, we identify major health issues affecting our community. We then search out best practices and bring innovative models to our community. Together with community partners we develop and implement initiatives that will make a positive impact on improving health. Cross sector collaboration with a broad range of organizations and community residents is a key component to our success.
Generations often serves as a coordinating or backbone organization for community initiatives. In this role, we provide technical assistance and when needed, establish an infrastructure for cross sector collaborative efforts. For various projects, we convene partners, guide the vision and strategy, align activities and communications among partners, serve as project managers, mobilize funding, provide financial management, measure impact, and advance policy.
Learn more About Us and our Community Impact.
Mission
Engaging the community to improve health for all, especially the underserved.
Vision
Generations Health Care Initiatives envisions a community where all attain their highest potential of health and well-being.
Values
- Optimal health and well-being for all
- Community collaboration
- Innovation and bold solutions to improve health
- Integrity in all aspects of our work
Current Initiatives
Insure Duluth
Insure Duluth is a sixteen member, multi-sector Coalition focused on supporting the community in accessing health care coverage through MNsure. , Generations Health Care Initiatives serves as the convener and coordinator for Insure Duluth Activities. Other organizations represent community non-profit agencies, health care providers, foundations, faith communities, and higher education.
A core component of the coalition’s efforts is to support a network of MNsure-certified navigators. Navigators are available at multiple sites to assist community members, free of charge, with enrollment into health coverage programs available through MNsure. Funding for navigators comes from the MNsure Navigator Outreach and Enrollment Grant Program. Generations has been the MNsure grantee for the Greater Duluth Navigator Network since 2013.
Find out more at insureduluth.org
Community Health Collaborations
Together for Health
Together for Health is an innovative, collaborative approach to improving the health and well-being of the students, families, and community members in Duluth’s three Full Service Community Schools — Myers-Wilkins Elementary School, Lincoln Park Middle School and Denfeld High School.
Through financial support from Generations to the Duluth Community School Collaborative, a Community Health Coordinator works with students and families at Myers-Wilkins Elementary, Lincoln Park Middle and Denfeld High schools and serves as a liaison to health and social services. Access to coordinated delivery of social, health, economic, and educational services offered through school/community partnerships aims to improve outcomes for students, their families, and neighborhood residents. Generations works with the Collaborative to collect data on the impact of these efforts to engage diverse community partners and policy makers on opportunities to increase health equity.
Community Health Workers
Community Health Worker (CHW) initiatives have been a key component of Generations’ commitment to improving health equity and reducing health disparities in the northland since 2015. Today, Generations facilitates a CHW Network that brings together CHWs from diverse sectors including health systems, public health, and non-profit organizations. Generations also partners with a local network of stakeholders to support Resourceful (weareresourceful.org) to connect individuals to services and supports that address social determinants of health.
Working with stakeholders, Generations is committed to facilitating and supporting the development of sustainable CHW models that will allow the CHW field to grow and thrive.
School-Based Health Center
School-Based Health Centers (SBHC) provide an innovative model of health care designed to reduce health disparities and improve health equity for students and their families, regardless of income, insurance, or immigration status.
With support from the Minnesota Department of Health, Generations is leading a multi-year initiative to establish a SBHC within one of Duluth’s Full-Service Community Schools.
True to mission, Generations role in this comprehensive project will include program management, fiscal oversight, data collection, technical support, and to serve as a liaison between the Minnesota Department of Health, school district, and health care clinical partner. Generations will bring together families, students, and local partners to ensure those who will directly benefit from a SBHC are engaged in the development process.
Bridge to Health Survey
The Bridge to Health Survey has been a valued source of information on health trends of adults in the Northeastern Minnesota/Northwestern Wisconsin region for over three decades. It is a reliable source of data at both the regional and county levels, filling a gap in locally relevant data. The survey has been repeated every five years since it was first conducted in 1995.
Throughout its history, the Bridge to Health Survey has been a collaborative effort involving organizations representing public health, hospitals, clinics, health systems, health plans, non-profit organizations, foundations, and educational institutions. Generations has coordinated and been a major sponsor of the survey since 2005. It is unique in that it is independently developed and distributed, with free data access.
The goal of the survey is to provide a deeper understanding of the health and wellbeing of the region’s adult population and guide intervention strategies. Local organizations have relied on survey data for program planning, development of new services, advocacy, evaluation, health needs assessment, and fundraising.
Find out more at bridgetohealthsurvey.org
Keystones
Our mission is most effectively fulfilled through a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusiveness as operating principles and integrated into our core policies.
It is the policy of Generations to engage in an active and ongoing process that affirms human diversity in its many forms, encompassing but not limited to ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation and identification, age, economic circumstance, class, disability, and religion.
We live, work, and serve a community built on the ancestral lands of the Dakota and Anishinaabe people.
