HCP is a collaboration of organizations and members who share a commitment to a healthier Mahoning Valley. With support from the Community Foundation of Mahoning Valley, the partnership’s work has been 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.
Our five guiding principles:
- Collective Action - Partners work together to develop and implement effective solutions, including leveraging existing efforts, to achieve long-term, sustainable change and reach our destination
- Community Engagement - The Partnership is a community effort that reflects the diversity of the Valley and purposefully and respectfully engages residents.
- Health and Equity in All Policies (HEiAP) - Partners believe that health and equity must be considered in all decision-making and must be integrated and articulated into policy making across all sectors
- Influence and Inspire - Partners are committed to using their talents to influence and inspire and create a culture of health throughout the Mahoning Valley
- Systems Change - Partners seek to address the root causes of health and wellbeing inequities by intentionally altering the structures that cause/enable community systems to function inequitably
Why HCP-MV
In 2016, staff from the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley participated in the 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.
The founding partners of HCP-MV wanted not only to change what community partners worked on, but how community partners work together. Both elements are essential to achieve the long term change needed to improve health, well-being, and health equity for all residents throughout the Mahoning Valley.
With this in mind, HCP-MV developed an organizational structure based on collective impact principles and incorporated a policy, system, and environmental model for change. Using these tools, 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.
These two guideposts serve as HCP-MV’s compass, directing our diverse coalition to act and react based on: what the community tells us are the most important health priorities and how we work together to remove barriers and improve health outcomes. These guideposts have also informed HCP-MV in the development of a Roadmap for Change and Bold Goals to help us along our journey towards becoming a healthier community. These goals and the roadmap are dynamic and will consistently be examined to make sure that HCP-MV is working towards a future that upholds our guiding principles, achieves our mission, and fulfills our pledge to the community.
Everyone has a role to play to make sure that the Mahoning Valley is a place where all residents have the same opportunity to be healthy and live full lives. We are excited with how far we have come, and we look forward to where we will be going.
While numerous organizations and initiatives have been working to improve health outcomes, and we continue to have excellent medical care facilities, we are still not living long, healthy, and fulfilling lives. Community decisions have discounted health, sustaining and creating circumstances where many residents in the Mahoning Valley do not have access to healthy, affordable food or safe, suitable surroundings that allow for physical activity. This has resulted in poor nutrition and physical inactivity, both preventable conditions, becoming two of the most pressing issues impacting the health of Mahoning Valley residents and leading to high rates of obesity, diabetes, cancer, and other chronic diseases.
We will first focus on creating more equitable opportunities for residents to eat healthier and be more active, as well as encourage and support residents to make those choices. We have selected three evidence-based approaches that align with priorities identified by community residents.
Reality for Residents
Action Teams are connected to each approach and working towards developing meaningful, measurable goals, objectives, and outcomes.
HCP Staff
Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley
201 E. Commerce St. #150 | Youngstown, Ohio 44503
P. 330.743.5555 | F. 330.743.1802
E. slowry@cfmv.org
Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley
201 E. Commerce St. #150 | Youngstown, Ohio 44503
P. 330.743.5555 | F. 330.743.1802
E. rperry@hcpmahoningvalley.com