Organization:   Senior Citizens Home Assistance Service

Project Title:    Connections:  Hospital to Home Safe Home

Senior Citizens Home Assistance Service seeks to address the challenges that older adults face when trying to successfully transition from the hospital back to the home.  The initial goal is to implement a Care Transition Program called “Connections: Hospital to Home Safe Home.” Transition Coaches will be trained to interact with program participants prior to discharge, during a home visit, and during phone interactions over a 30 day period.  This model emphasizes “Four Pillars” to ensure a seamless transition from acute care setting to home:  1) Medication self-management, 2) Use of a Personal Health Record, 3) Timely primary care/specialty care follow up, and 4) Knowledge of red flags that indicate a worsening in their condition and how to respond.

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organization:   Cherokee Health Systems

Project Title:    Healthy Pregnancies Inner City Knox

According to research, access to high quality and comprehensive prenatal care services is a significant problem among underserved, uninsured and poor women.  They are at an increased risk for health difficulties during pregnancy and after childbirth as well as their children being at risk for adverse health consequences.  The Centering Pregnancy Program (CPP) model is a nationally recognized and successful evidence-based program that incorporates health assessment, education, and support into a unified program within a group setting.  The overall purpose of this project is to identify specific health care needs of underserved pregnant women and their infant children in inner city Knox County, resulting in a strategy for implementing a collaborative project leading to improved health outcomes. Cherokee Health Systems has garnered interest in this project from collaborators including the Knox County Health Department and the University of Tennessee Department of Nutrition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organization:   Emerald Youth Foundation

Project Title:    Transformation Through Sports

Emerald Youth Foundation desires to use sports as a vehicle for transformation for urban young people through their Emerald Youth Sports programs.  They provide children and youth with fun and wellness activities as well as opportunities to learn skills, competitiveness, build relationships, teamwork, leadership and life skills, and promote spiritual formation.  Emerald Youth Foundation has been working to provide an organized soccer program to the inner city.  A donor has approached Emerald Youth Foundation with the idea of building a several million-dollar, inner-city sports complex to provide a physical place for an urban youth soccer program. The donor indicated that they would like to build a soccer complex on the property that will turn a currently unused, vacant property into a thriving focal point bustling with activity year round. Emerald Youth would have the sole use of as well as manage this complex and be responsible for raising funds for the soccer program costs as well as the operation of the facility. Phase I funding will be used to determine what wellness and sports programs should be offered, what collaborators are needed to run the programs, what infrastructure is needed to support the complex, and what is the ideal business model and marketing plan for sustaining the annual operational cost of the complex.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organization:   Healthcare 21

Project Title:    A Plan to Improve Food Choices Within USDA-identified Food  Deserts

In American, many people are forced to choose between unhealthy fast food or overly priced convenience store staples simply because they living in a community that lacks a conventional grocery story, identified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as “food deserts”.  Healthcare 21’s goal is to motivate, encourage, educate and transform the daily health choices made by those living and attending school within food deserts. They will address lifestyle issues associated with obesity and diabetes prevention with their mobile fresh foods markets and visits from a health coach. Phase I research will help identify a select number of these communities to implement this project in. Impact on food choices will occur immediately with the introduction of fresh foods into the community.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organization:   InterFaith Health Clinic

Project Title:    Living Well Program-Chronic Disease Management

Knoxville’s uninsured population lacks resources to help them manage chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.  Developed by Stanford University, The University of Tennessee Extension is currently delivering a successful disease management program called Living Well with Chronic Conditions.  With this as a model, the InterFaith Living Well initiative aims to improve the health and overall quality of life of working uninsured individuals suffering from chronic disease in our community. By incorporating InterFaith’s medical providers, the clinic’s licensed clinical social worker, certified patient educators, and religious resources from throughout the community, IF Living Well intends to improve the physical, emotional, and spiritual health of its participants by equipping them with the knowledge and motivation to make healthy choices, thus positively impacting the progression of their disease.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organization:   Mental Health Association of East Tennessee

Project Title:    STRESSless Corporate and Community APP Project: Taking Mental Health, Health and Wellness to the Digital Age

The Mental Health Association will change the way corporate health and wellness outreach is done, increasing access to mental health and wellness information and promotions by creating a digital platform to promote greater symptom recognition among employees and the public.  The Mental Health Association will test innovative, sustainable mental health promotion and outreach strategies with employees and the public utilizing digital technology to motivate individuals to seek help for themselves, co-workers, family or friends.  The “STRESSless Community APP” will be for the public to download from their website, www.mhaet.com. Participants who enroll through the website will receive fingertip access to mental health information, text messages, videos, journal articles, and newsletters from the Mental Health Association.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organization:   Allies for Substance Abuse Prevention of Anderson County

Project Title:    Anderson County Juvenile Drug Court Program

By establishing a juvenile drug court program in Anderson County, Allies for Substance Abuse Prevention of Anderson County (ASAP), the School System, and Juvenile Court will effectively reduce the number of juveniles with a second drug offense by incorporating a treatment approach involving the family unit, thereby eventually reducing the number of adults with multiple drug offenses.  The mission of the Anderson County Juvenile Drug Court will be to reduce substance abuse and delinquent conduct among adolescent offenders by providing them and their families with intensive and individualized services. By helping participants reach their full potential as valued community members, we will create a stronger, safer community.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organization:   Friends of Tennessee’s Babies with Special Needs

Project Title:    The Saving Grace Initiative:  Support for Families of NICU Babies

Currently in Knoxville, there are no formalized long standing support groups, care packages for families, or support for respite care (once home) targeted for the families of NICU babies. These children and families need the support of our community so they will be strengthened and enabled to meet the medical and developmental needs of their child(ren). Supporting families, providing information and empowering families early on will ensure positive outcomes for these children in the future (Graham’s Foundation at www.grahamsfoundation.org).  The overall goal of The Saving Grace Initiative is to provide resources and strengthen support to families of micro-preemies during and after their stay in the NICU.  Support will include: care packages to families of micro preemies in NICUs at UT and ETCH, support groups and training opportunities for families during and after hospital stay, transition to home support for families, respite care for families of micro preemies, and Child Find, linking families to needed early intervention services.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organization:   It’s Your Drama

Project Title:    Champions Are Made Project and the All Pro Dad Project

The Champion Project is expected to help break the cycle of unhealthy male role models in our society by using the dual approach of developing male student-athletes into young men of character and re-establishing community fathers as healthy, involved models of manhood. Phase I goals of the Champion Project are to lay the groundwork necessary to launch the Character Coach initiative on four university campuses and launch the All Pro Dad program in ten Knox County Elementary Schools. The successful groundwork will serve to accomplish the implementation of these effective programs during Phase 2 of the Champion Project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organization:   Big Brothers/Big Sisters of East Tennessee

Project Title:    The Parent Network:  Parent Engagement and Skill Development

Big Brothers Big Sisters of East Tennessee (BBBSETN) serves children from low-wealth single-parent homes helping them achieve their potential through one-to-one mentoring relationships that are LONG (one year or more) and STRONG (close, resilient).  A key partner in the most effective matches is a supportive, responsive parent.  Currently, parents are primarily engaged individually:  interviewed and oriented through the enrollment process, consulted in mentor choice, and contacted monthly by a professional Match Support Specialist monitoring the progress of the mentor-child relationship. There is not a sense of community among our parents, and the quality of the parent relationship with mentors and the agency varies widely.  BBBS of Middle Tennessee (BBBSMT) and BBBS of New York City (BBBSNYC) have implemented parent engagement and training programs that provide additional support and training leading to increased success between the mentor and the child.   BBBSETN plans to research these two successful programs through Phase I funding with an ultimate goal of implementing The Parent Network: Parent Engagement and Skill Development program in East Tennessee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organization:   East Tennessee Children’s Hospital

Project Title:    Children’s Autism Program

Several research publications indicate that early intervention services may improve the quality of life and level of functioning for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.  Behavioral therapy encompasses a number of concepts and techniques to assess treat and prevent behavioral problems in children with ASD.  Behavioral and communication therapy, fine and gross motor developmental treatment and family training are core elements of best-practice programs.  Phase I funding will support developing an area coordinated, multidisciplinary, evidence-based model for a Children’s Autism Program.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organization:   Young Life Knoxville

Project Title:    Expand the Young Life/Teen Moms Programs in Knox County

Young Life plans to expand Young Life in Knox County and grow a sustainable YoungLives outreach program.  The YoungLives program strives to serve as a mentoring role to teen moms as well as offer support for their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs in hopes to change the path of their lives and their children.  In order to accomplish this aggressive plan, they will focus on hiring additional staff to enable both programs to expand, recruit, train and deploy more volunteer leaders, involve a minimum of 15 teen moms in YoungLives, provide camp scholarships for the upcoming summer, and build on-going financial support to ensure their ministry’s sustainability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organization:   Compassion Coalition

Project Title:    Establish the Getting Ahead Program

Compassion Coalition (CC) will develop, plan, and implement the Getting Ahead program to directly address the issue of poverty in our community. Getting Ahead is a 20-week curriculum-based educational program designed to transform the way individuals facing poverty think about their economic opportunities.  Getting Ahead is designed to help people make life changes through self-analysis, planning to build personal and family resources. It is a way for people in poverty to become involved in planning and developing strategies for building communities where everyone can live well. Getting Ahead Investigators provide vital concrete information that planners need in order to address poverty effectively by defining what poverty is like locally and by providing accurate information on the barriers that they encounter as they begin to transition out of poverty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organization:   University of Tennessee Medical Center

Project Title:    Education in Medical Pastoral Care for East Tennessee Spiritual Leaders

Rather than each hospital spending resources to train and employ on-call chaplains, The University of Tennessee Medical Center hopes to address the medical pastoral care needs of East Tennessee by providing free or low-cost training to already trusted spiritual leaders.  This would be a valuable resource to the established volunteer chaplaincy programs and be a means of providing pastoral care in communities where the local hospital has no chaplain services.  The University of Tennessee Medical Center would require no commitment from these clergy members for chaplaincy service on its own campus; the program would simply be a means for area spiritual leaders to learn basic medical and chaplaincy practices so that they can better care for their congregations during times of crisis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organization:   Breakthrough Corporation

Project Title:    Establish a Project SEARCH Program in Knox County/ Employment Training for the Disabled
Project SEARCH was developed at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) to train young adults with disabilities to meet a need for reliable employees in the hospital’s emergency department. In the Project SEARCH model, students with disabilities spend their last year of secondary education at a hospital receiving vocational coursework and an internship that provides the opportunity to rotate through various jobs. After completing the program, graduating students are placed into jobs at the host hospital or at other employers in the community. The program has achieved an 80% employment rate for its graduates.  The goal of this proposal is to begin the process of planning Project SEARCH sites at employers in the Knoxville area. This effort will focus on the development of adult model Project SEARCH sites so that a broader age range of young adults with disabilities may benefit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organization:   Knoxville Area Urban League

Project Title:    Urban Youth Empowerment Project

According to TDOC Release Trends and Failure Rates, after an offender is released from TDOC jurisdiction, it takes an average of about 15 months for a return to criminal activity to occur.  Knoxville Area Urban League (KAUL) believes injecting the aspect of faith into the process of social service delivery will create an environment that can cultivate a deep change within an individual and lead to a greater level of effectiveness.  A successful program has been the Urban League of Greater Dallas Project for Victory (Re-Entry Program).  Working with CONNECT, KAUL intends to leverage best practices and lessons learned documented by the Academy for Educational Development in Turnaround Strategies for Youth At-Risk. (Dallas).  These practices include a focus on strategic partnerships with employers and public and non-profit organizations that bring educational and workforce related opportunities; effective hiring of strong, committed program staff; careful attention to the mental health and substance use service needs of participants, and linkages to effective services; an emphasis on peer-based systems of outreach and support for program participants; and high quality mentoring opportunities.   The goal of the Urban Youth Empowerment Project (UYEP) is to change the lives of young adult offenders and high school dropouts, ages 18 to 34, by improving the long-term labor market prospects.