Urban Health Intiative

March 2006

$200 Million and Counting!

In 1995 The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation established the Urban Health Initiative to determine whether a concerted, collaborative effort could bring about citywide improvements in multiple measures of child well being.

In the ensuing ten years, each of the five local UHI campaigns contributed to improving the lives of its city’s children. The UHI sites are doing what they set out to do. In 2005 alone, the five UHI sites created or redirected investments of nearly $200 million for their best-practice strategies. Systemic change is occurring. Money is flowing in the right direction. Cities are learning to use data and research to work smarter for kids. And, as a result, children and families are benefiting.

This work continues. With extra support from RWJF and additional partners, the five UHI campaigns carry on their individual efforts to secure fiscal and policy improvements on behalf of their cities’ children. Click the links below to visit the individual websites for Baltimore’s Safe and Sound Campaign, Mayor’s Time of Detroit, Oakland’s Safe Passages, Philadelphia Safe and Sound, and Richmond’s Youth Matters.

The UHI’s National Program Office, The Institute for Community Change, is winding down its guidance of the local sites. The ICC will continue to share the valuable lessons gained from the ten-year UHI experience with policymakers, philanthropists, advocates and academics. See box, UHI Lessons Learned Project, for more information.

Urban Seminar Series

The Urban Seminar Series, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by Dr. William Julius Wilson of Harvard University, brings together some of the best researchers and practitioners working in child health and development to discuss papers on issues related to the Urban Health Initiative. Papers presented at Urban Seminars on the following topics can be found on the Harvard website by clicking here.

Fielding Large Scale Community Change Initiatives: Key Lessons From a Decade of Systems Change

Institutionalizing Systems Change: Spotlight on the Sites

Getting (and Keeping) Your Slice of the Pie

Strategies to Ensure the Continued Success of Large Scale Initiatives

Building Coalitions to Bring About Change

After-School Time

Creating Change in Urban Public Education

Youth Violence in Urban Communities

Successful Youth in High Risk Environments

Fatherhood

^New! Urban Health Initiative Color Booklet Now Available

This full color booklet presents the goals, activities and accomplishments of the Urban Health Initiative, as well as some of the people whose lives have been touched by this innovative effort. It includes success stories from Baltimore, Detroit, Oakland, Philadelphia and Richmond. Click the link for a pdf version of the booklet; for hard copies, call the UHI’s national program office, The Institute for Community Change, at (206) 812-1193.

Urban Health Initiative Booklet

^New! Urban Health Initiative Video

Learn more about the history and accomplishments of the Urban Health Initiative from this compelling online video. (Running time is approximately 5 min 30 sec.)

View with Windows Media Player (34 MB)

View with Quick Time (29 MB)

UHI Lessons Learned Projects

The five local UHI campaigns and the National Program Office have learned many lessons with regard to developing change agent organizations, and securing and sustaining change in large cities. The NPO catalogued these lessons so they can be of use to the local UHI campaigns as they continue their efforts and to others interested in large-scale community change efforts.

To share comments or suggestions about the UHI Lessons Learned Project, or to request hard copies of the papers, contact Jerry VanderWood at The Institute for Community Change, 206-812-1193 or e-mail:

jvanderwood@instituteforcommunitychange.org

Moving the Bureaucracy
Securing the policy change is often the “easy” part. What innovative strategies did UHI sites employ to help bureaucracies carry out policy changes, and to ensure that the reforms live beyond changes in administration? How did UHI sites help bridge institutional differences to help bureaucracies work together in new ways? (Click here for full article.)

Developing Local Infrastructure: The Salience of Muddling Through
A challenge to expanding services to a dramatically larger scale involves the local infrastructure. Some intermediary may have to be created or restructured to “get/give/manage” money. Each UHI site took a different approach to developing this infrastructure. What were the benefits and trade-offs of these approaches? (Click here for full article.)

Enlisting Leaders in Community Change: The UHI Fellows Program
The UHI created the Fellows Program to enlist the assistance of influential community leaders to the cause of improving the health and safety of children. In what ways were the Fellows involved in the local UHI efforts? What were the challenges to engaging senior-level volunteers in meaningful ways? (Click here for full article.) Sustainable Funding for Program Strategies
How can significant amounts of long-term funding be mobilized for programs for children? What revenue streams have been created or redirected with the help of the UHI campaigns? (Click here for full article.)

The Experience of an Intermediary in a Complex Initiative: The Urban Health Initiative’s National Program Office
Why would a foundation use an intermediary to manage a multi-site initiative? What are the important aspects of the relationships among a foundation, intermediary and local sites? (Click here for full article.)

Communications Planning by Change Agents
How has communications furthered the goals of UHI campaigns? What issues should be considered before developing a comprehensive communications plan? (Click here for full article.)

Using Data in the Decision-Making Process
How did data guide the UHI campaigns? How did the campaigns collect and analyze the data they needed? In what ways was data used as a political and communications tool? (Click here for full article.)

Political Strategizing in a Constantly Changing Environment
What tactics did UHI campaigns employ to survive and thrive during political change? What do change agents need in order to be prepared for change? (Click here for full article.)

Reflections on the Start-Up of the Urban Health Initiative
What could have been done differently to get the UHI campaigns up and running more effectively? What can potential sponsors of community change efforts learn from the UHI start up? (Click here for full article.)

The Origins of the Urban Health Initiative
What were the motivations of those who developed the UHI as a large-scale community change effort? When early decisions and choices were made, what factors were considered? (Click here for full article.)