Archives — News & Events

September 20 -- Two HFP staff had presentations accepted at national conferences recently, showcasing their work related to HIV/AIDS.  

In October 2011, Zupenda Davis, a Training Specialist with the AIDS Education and Training Center (AETC), will present on “From Protocol to Practice: Successes and Challenges of Post Exposure Response Community Workgroup’s Efforts to Implement a Citywide non-occupational Post Exposure Prophylaxis (nPEP) HIV Prevention Strategy” at the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE)’s 62nd Annual Meeting in Arlington, VA.  This paper describes the experience of working with the City of Philadelphia to implement a new biomedical HIV prevention approach. 

Danielle Parks, Program Director for the Women’s Anonymous Test Site (WATS) and also a Training Specialist with the AETC, presented on “Perceptions of HIV risk among African American, Heterosexual, Professional Women” at the 2011 National HIV Prevention Conference, held in Atlanta, GA from August 14-17, 2011.  The presentation reported results from a study of 500 women, examining whether educational background significantly affected women’s perception of their own risk of acquiring HIV. 

September 15 -- Register now for the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association's (CFHA)’s annual meeting, taking place in Philadelphia from October 27-29, 2011.  Natalie Levkovich, Executive Director of the Health Federation, is one of three co-chairs for the event, which has the theme: “Accelerating Adoption of Collaborative Care: Reaching the Tipping Point.”  

CFHA promotes collaboration as an essential element necessary for re-visioning healthcare and advocates for comprehensive and cost-effective models of healthcare delivery that integrate mind and body, individual and family, patients, providers and communities.  The Annual Conference brings together practitioners, researchers, students, academicians, corporations, governmental agencies, and foundations  to focus on the varied aspects of collaborative and integrated healthcare. 

This year’s plenary sessions bring groundbreaking leaders to Philadelphia to discuss their work:

• Jeff Brenner MD will present on “Data Driven Collaborative Care.” Dr. Brenner is the founder of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers. His “Hotspotting” healthcare model was the focus of a recent Atul Gawande article in the New Yorker.
• Kavita Patel MD and Frank DeGruy MD will present “From Grassroots to Tree Tops: Policy and Practice as a Collaborative Conversation in the New World.” 
• Denise Rodgers MD and Arlene Katz EdD will present “Did Anyone Talk with the Women?” Making Space for the Voices of Patients, Families, and Communities.” 

In addition, the conference will feature 80+ break-out sessions that are of interest to primary care physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, family therapists, social workers, and counselors.  Three preconference workshops on October 27 will focus on Social Media, Sustaining an Integrated Care Practice, and Evidence-Based Care for Health Behaviors in Primary Care Settings.

To register for the conference, visit www.cfha.net. An early registration discount is in effect until September 30th and group discounts are also offered.

May 18 - The Health Federation is pleased to announce the launch of the fourth annual youth poster contest to celebrate National Health Center Week (August 7-13 2011). The theme of this year’s contest is “Community Health Centers: Meeting the Challenge of Health Care for All.”   Any young person aged 9-18 living in Philadelphia, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery County is welcome to participate. Schools and summer camps in the Philadelphia area are also invited to make this an activity for their participants.  Contest rules, entry forms, and other information is attached below. Please email scohen@healthfederation.org or call 215-567-8001 x3026 with any questions.

Many thanks to our headline sponsor, Health Partners, for their support of this program.

Download Poster Contest Details

HFP’s Smoking Cessation program will have the opportunity to train professionals from several organizations that serve adolescents and young adult women, thanks to a contract from the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Women’s Health.  The project, titled “Adolescent Brain Development & Nicotine: Implementing PA’s 100% Tobacco Free Toolkit in the Greater Philadelphia Community,”  will allow HFP to offer a one-day training, and ongoing technical assistance to community based organizations that provide social services, education, and/or healthcare to young women ages 14-25. Trained staff from these organizations will then implement the Tobacco Free Toolkit within their organizations with the goal of reducing smoking among consumers, and creating organizational policies that support this goal.

In addition, the smoking cessation program has initiated an on-site group cessation program at the Abbotsford-Falls Health Center, part of the Family Practice and Counseling Network. Health Center patients who are referred by their providers or who self-refer participate in 6 weekly sessions, where they get support for stopping or reducing smoking through professional counseling, peer support and free NRT. With the addition of the Abbotsford group, HFP’s smoking cessation counselors are now running groups in over a dozen Philadelphia health centers.

The Health Federation's Multiplying Connections program is sponsoring an exciting program titled "Reflective  Supervision as Trauma Informed Practice: The Time is Now"  with visiting scholar Rebecca Shahmoon Shanock, LCSW, PhD.  The program will take place at the School District of Philadelphia Education Center at 440 North Broad Street on Friday, June 17 from 8:30am - 12 noon.

The program is open to the public and will be of most benefit to policy makers, leaders, and supervisors from the education, health, behavioral health, and human services areas.  For more information and to register, please visit the Multiplying Connections website.

The Collaborative Family Healthcare Association (CFHA) is holding its annual meeting in Philadelphia from October 27-29, 2011.  Natalie Levkovich, Executive Director of the Health Federation, is one of three co-chairs for the event, which has the theme: “Accelerating Adoption of Collaborative Care: Reaching the Tipping Point.” CFHA is now accepting submissions for individual and panel presentations. The call for proposals is available here.

CFHA focuses on collaboration as an essential element necessary for re-visioning healthcare. CFHA promotes comprehensive and cost-effective models of healthcare delivery that integrate mind and body, individual and family, patients, providers and communities.

The CFHA Annual Conference focuses on the varied aspects of collaborative and integrated healthcare. It has become the premiere conference of its type, bringing together practitioners, researchers, students, academicians, corporations, governmental agencies, and foundations. The three-day Conference includes preconference workshops; three plenary sessions and more than 50 educational breakout sessions.

If you are doing innovative work on any aspect of collaborative care, please consider submitting a proposal for a panel or individual presentation.  For more information about CFHA and the conference, please go to www.cfha.net.

November 11, 2010 -- The Health Federation of Philadelphia (HFP)’s Multiplying Connections initiative has been awarded a $250,000 grant from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to evaluate the efficacy of integrating S.E.L.F., a theory based trauma intervention model that is a component of the Sanctuary model, with its existing home based Early Head Start program located in North Philadelphia.

The intervention, titled the Enhanced Home Visiting Program (EHVP), aims to

• reduce the incidence and impact of children’s exposure to violence; and
• increase the protective factors afforded to children by strengthening primary caregivers’ ability to provide safe, stable, nurturing relationships.

The grant comes out of DOJ’s Safe Start Promising Approaches Initiative.  HFP is one of ten recipients of funding under this program nationwide. The Safe Start Projects further DOJ’s mission by developing and supporting practice enhancements and innovations to prevent and reduce the impact of children’s exposure to violence in their homes and communities. 

Specifically, EHVP aims to break the cycle of intergenerational transmission of trauma and violence by embedding maternal trauma screening and intervention in a home based Early Head Start program. In year one, forty-eight families will receive the EHVP intervention and will be compared to a control group. Additionally, EHVP will build capacity to provide a continuum of trauma informed services to the families it serves by offering skills based training and consultation to its program staff and community partners regarding trauma informed policies and practices.

This capacity building component will be developed in partnership with Ruth Ann Ryan of CommunityWorks and the Institute for Safe Families and implemented through a unique Philadelphia cross-system collaborative, Multiplying Connections. A rigorous evaluation using quantitative and qualitative measures will be designed and conducted to determine if the EHVP approach results in reductions in caregiver trauma symptoms and increases parenting capacities. Funding for this initiative may be extended for up to three years.

The National Health Corps, an AmeriCorps National Direct Program based at the Health Federation of Philadelphia, has been renewed and expanded to include five operating sites around the country, which collectively will oversee the service of 94 members.  In addition to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, North Florida, and Chicago, the NHC now has a new operating site at the South Side Medical Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

National Health Corps members spend one year at community organizations working to increase access to health care services and to promote health and safety among members of underserved communities.  Members come from diverse backgrounds, but all share a commitment to service and an interest in health professions.  Many Health Corps members are recent college graduates who plan to pursue a career as a physician, nurse or other health care provider, but wish to gain some “real world” experience in community health  before continuing their education.

“We are very excited about the growth of the National Health Corps,” said Corinne Lagermasini, Project Director. “With the economic recession, access to health care is getting even more difficult for many people around the country, and our members are playing a vital role in linking communities to health education and health care services.”

The Health Federation has hosted the Philadelphia operating site of the NHC since 1994 and has administered the National program  since 2002  . For more information, please go to www.nationalhealthcorps.org. 

The Health Federation will receive the "Making a Difference" award from the Health Partners Foundation at a reception on October 20th. This award is given each year to an organization in recognition of their work making a difference in the community.

HFP's Early Head Start program was selected as one of three Philadelphia businesses to be recognized for practices that support breastfeeding mothers in the workplace.  The Maternity Care Coalition's Breastfeeding Friendly Business awards help to promote the health and economic benefits of breastfeeding to help create and strengthen breastfeeding support in the workplace. Congratulations to the whole Early Head Start team for their great work in supporting staff with infants and young children.

June 10 – The Health Federation was awarded $327,169 in Recovery Act Funds through the Department of Health and Human Services to expand a clinical data warehouse that will allow community health centers in the Philadelphia area to enhance their ability to monitor and improve clinical quality of care and patient health outcomes. Grants were awarded to 45 Health Center Controlled Networks throughout the country for Health Information Technology projects that support safety net providers in their efforts to adopt and effectively use electronic medical record systems. HFP was the only grant recipient in Pennsylvania. Over the past three years, HFP has built the infrastructure for a clinical data warehouse. Four health centers in the Philadelphia area are currently feeding summary data from their electronic medical record systems into this warehouse. With the new grant, an additional three health center systems, including the City of Philadelphia, will join this project and the data collected will be expanded to include dental and behavioral health. Ultimately, the data warehouse will be used to enable the participating health centers to analyze various aspects of their clinical operations and patient outcomes. This process will allow the health centers to share best practices, learn from each other, and collectively improve their patient care.

May 6, 2010 -- For the third year, the Health Federation is organizing a youth poster contest to celebrate National Health Center Week (August 8-14, 2010). The contest theme is “Community Health Centers: Building the Foundation for Healthy Neighborhoods.”  Young people ages 9-18 from the Philadelphia area are invited to submit posters.  Full contest rules, including information on prizes, entry forms, and a fact sheet on health centers are now available. Interested participants can also contact scohen@healthfederation.org for more information.  Health Partners is again providing generous sponsorship for the contest.

March 18 – The Health Federation of Philadelphia’s AIDS Education and Training Center is a lead sponsor and organizer of an upcoming conference for health care providers on research and practice related to HIV-infected and at-risk youth.  The conference – taking place on April 22 at Temple University -- is geared towards primary care physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants who provide non-HIV specialty care to adolescents as well as to HIV specialists who treat youth in their outpatient care practices. National and local experts will provide an update on CDC HIV testing recommendations and implementation strategies for primary care offices; an overview of health care recommendations for HIV-positive youth, psycho-social co-morbidities for HIV positive youth and implications for research to address the various needs of youth.  Workshops and expert panels will supplement the plenary sessions.  The workshops will cover HIV testing and linkage to care, psycho-social issues, LGBTQ needs and more. In addition to HFP, the conference is co-sponsored by The Adolescent Initiative of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, The Pediatric/Adolescent HIV/AIDS Program of DUCOM/St. Christopher's Pediatric Associates, Circle of Care/Family Planning Council, and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health/AIDS Activities Coordinating Office. 

For additional information, please download a flyer and registration form.

Dec.14- The Health Federation’s Early Head Start Program was awarded $472,081 through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). This grant will allow the program to expand to serve 60 additional children and families in the 19121 and 19132 zip codes.

Early Head Start is a child development and family support program for pregnant women and families with children ages birth to 3. In HFP’s program, specially trained Child/Family Advocates visit the homes of participating families weekly. The Advocates work with a multi-disciplinary team, including social workers and specialists in health, nutrition, community resources, and child development to meet families’ needs related to child health and development.

HFP’s program was one of nineteen Early Head Start programs in Pennsylvania receiving funds through the federal stimulus program. As a result of this funding, HFP will be hiring several staff. Please go to our job openings for more information.