The Power of Partnership
With support from the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley and its three supporting organizations, the Healthy Community Partnership-Mahoning Valley (HCP-MV) is a collaboration of organizations and members who share a commitment to a healthier Mahoning Valley. The Partnership’s work is guided by a steering committee made up of Mahoning Valley residents representing a variety of sectors including the city and county public health districts, council of governments and commissioners’ offices, community development corporations, neighborhood leaders, food cooperatives and hospital systems.
In 2016, Community Foundation staff participated in Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s “Roadmaps to Health” coaching program with a desired outcome to develop a strategy that would enable the Foundation to become a more impactful leader and partner in the effort to improve health outcomes for residents in the Mahoning Valley.
During this process, CFMV staff sought additional guidance and feedback from local leadership in public health, community development, planning, health care, and grassroots organizations to help inform what happened next. It quickly became clear that to really make a difference, for the long term, for the most adversely impacted residents, a new approach and way of working together was needed. This was the beginning of the Healthy Community Partnership-Mahoning Valley.
Officially launched in 2018, HCP-MV developed an organizational structure based on collective impact principles and incorporated a policy, system, and environmental model for change. HCP-MV has brought together a diverse, regional, cross-sector coalition and built strategies that will allow partners to accomplish together examples of change that no one organization can accomplish alone.
There are three focus areas through which HCP develops strategies to improve health, wellbeing and health equity for residents in Mahoning and Trumbull Counties:
Healthy Food Retail
Improve access, affordability and consumption of healthy food.
Active Transportation
Improve Traffic and personal safety to increase physical activity.
Parks and Green Spaces
Improve and/or add recreational facilities to increase physical activity.
The generosity of the following funding partners support the efforts of the Partnership:
Component funds of the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley
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Western Reserve Health Foundation
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The Trumbull Memorial Health Foundation
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The William Swanston Charitable Fund
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The Mercy Health Foundation Mahoning Valley