Home: Highlights
Shape the Future of Housing in Your Community!
Check out your city’s housing element status to share your input! These cities are currently seeking feedback on their draft housing elements, a long-range plan to accommodate for all housing needs: Redwood City Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element, the City of San Mateo Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element, and the City of South San Francisco General Plan 2040.
Supporting Restorative Practices in South San Francisco Schools
Educational attainment is closely tied to school attendance. When students are suspended or expelled from school for disciplinary reasons, they are less likely to complete school and are more likely to become engaged in the juvenile justice system. The Young Men’s Christian Association’s (YMCA) Youth Services Bureau (YSB) was awarded funding from the 2021 Get Healthy SMC Implementation Funds to support the South San Francisco School District with offering middle and high school students alternatives to suspension.
Meet the New Health Equity Community Health Planner, Nupoor Kulkarni!
Dear Get Healthy SMC partners,
Food as Medicine Working Group
This year health plans administering Medi-Cal will be allowed to bill for community-based provider services or In Lieu of Services (ILOS) components that connect eligible populations with food and nutrition resources. This offers a great opportunity for us to support food as medicine strategies such as medically tailored meals and groceries, healthy food boxes, and healthy food vouchers via a sustainable and structured source of funding.
Congrats to the Next Cohort of EMS Corps Participants!
We are happy to share the following names of students selected from San Mateo County who will participate in our next round of EMS Corps, beginning April and running through August of this year:
Nature and Nurture, Springing Up Strategies for a New Team!
The Health Policy and Planning (HPP) team convened on March
15-16, 2022, for a staff retreat. The goals of the retreat were
to reassess priority areas, goals and objectives, incorporate
lessons from the pandemic, and build a cohesive and stronger
team.
Expanding Options for Testing and Vaccination during COVID-19 Surge
The highly transmissible Omicron variant is fueling a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases throughout the County. Test positivity rates countywide (17.3%) and in the Health Equity Quartile census tracts (24.4%) have increased in the latest 7-day lagged data that goes through January 12th. During this surge, the County has administered more tests than any other time since the pandemic began. This heightened demand for COVID-19 testing during the surge has been outstripping the capacity of healthcare providers, pharmacies, and County-sp
City and School Partnerships to Advance Safe School Travel!
East Palo Alto, Daly City, San Mateo, Redwood City and South San Francisco have been selected for the School Travel Fellowship program rolled out by the San Mateo County Office of Education to foster city-school partnerships to make active school travel safer for students. The interdisciplinary fellowship teams include a representative from city’s public works, transportation planning and/or engineering department, an elected official, school or school district personnel, community member, neighborhood association, and/or other local stakeholders.
Join the Next Emergency Medical Services Corps Co-ed Spring 2022 Cohort!
Don’t forget to apply to join the nationally renowned Emergency Medical Services Corps Program’s Spring 2022 Co-ed Cohort!
CCCS NFO/RWC Partners Discuss CCCS Workgroup 2.0
After a year of CCCS NFO/RWC partners meeting on a biweekly basis to share critical information and resources for immediate COVID-19 pandemic response to the most vulnerable residents, the group has now shifted to focused discussions on connecting the Neighborhood Action Plan Strategies identified pre-pandemic with the ever-evolving COVID-19 recovery assistance and outreach efforts of its partners.
East Palo Alto Kicks Off Housing Element Community Meetings
All jurisdictions across San Mateo County are updating their housing elements, a once-in-a-decade opportunity to plan for the future of our communities. East Palo Alto started hosting community meetings in English and Spanish. If you want to engage in the update of the housing element for your city, check out Let’s Talk Housing San Mateo County.
Get Healthy SMC Community Implementation Funding Is Back This Fall!
Get Healthy SMC Community Implementation Funding will be open for applications in early October! We will be seeking projects that will help us build healthier communities and ensure an equitable recovery. Stay tuned in the coming months as we will be sharing more information via our newsletter and social media. Check out previously funded projects here.
Still Time to Apply! Youth Civic Empowerment Trainings
In an effort to build a pipeline of youth who have been underrepresented in decision making bodies such as youth councils and boards and commissions, there will be two training cohorts this summer that will offer the opportunity to build youth’s skills to become inclusive decision makers. Applications are due June 1st.
Leading the Healthy Retail and Safe Routes to School Work
Dear Get Healthy SMC partners,
Farewell Dr. Lockett
Dr. Cassius Lockett served as Director of Public Health, Policy and Planning for San Mateo County Health for five years, including guiding our local public health response to the global pandemic. We were sad to lose his stellar leadership as he accepted an important leadership role serving the residents of southern Nevada. Deputy Chief of Health, Srija Srinivasan, is serving as the Acting Director of Public Health, Policy and Planning while we recruit for a new leader to join our team and continue to partner with all of you.
Equity-Driven Organizations Advising Housing Policies
The Health Policy and Planning Program is excited to be part of Let’s Talk Housing San Mateo County Equity Advisory Group to ensure that the next decade of housing policies reflect the needs and also the assets of historically marginalized communities. The pandemic shed light on the severe housing crisis that many of our residents experience and how their poor housing conditions impacted their health outcomes.
New Tool! Building a Pipeline of Youth Leaders and Decision Makers
Civic empowerment is key to youth health. The Health Policy and Planning Program is supporting The Daly City Youth Health Center and Youth Leadership Institute to build a local pipeline of underrepresented youth in boards and commissions.
Congratulations to Our Staff!
Justin Watkins, one of Health Policy and Planning’s Community Health Planner’s has accepted the Work Out of Class Senior Community Health Planner role. In this role, Justin will be taking over supervision of the County’s CalFresh Healthy Living Program staff and continuing to lead the Healthy Food Access and Healthy Schools efforts. Angie Cavazos, who has previously supervised the CalFresh Healthy Living Program has transitioned back to Family Health to support the County’s COVID-19 vaccination efforts for the next year, along with our colleague, Liz Sanchez.
Daly City Youth Health Center and Jefferson Union High School District Awarded Funding to Deliver Civic Empowerment Training for Youth
We are excited to share that the Daly City Youth Health Center (DCYHC) in partnership with Jefferson Union High School District has been selected to implement their Be The Change (BTC) Advisory project as an additional youth-focused civic empowerment training effort of the CCCS Racial Equity Subcommittee. BTC will empower and educate youth in Daly City to address social determinants of health through civic engagement and policy change, culminating in the creation of a youth advisory board to inform the programming and services of the DCYHC. We look forward to sharing more update
South San Francisco Adopts Vision Zero Goal!
On February 24, 2021, South San Francisco (SSF) city council adopted a Vision Zero resolution to achieve zero roadway fatalities by 2025. By adopting this goal SSF joins five other San Mateo County cities (San Mateo, East Palo Alto, Redwood City, Menlo Park, and Daly City) prioritizing roadway safety. At the special council meeting, the council highlighted their previous involvement and commitment to safer streets near schools by participating in walk audits with the County Office of Education (COE) and Health Policy and Planning (HPP) at Sunshine Gardens and Los Cerritos.