Healthier Together began as a community-led solution to improve health disparities in diabetes, behavioral health and family caregiving in six Palm Beach County, Florida communities.
Launched by Palm Health Foundation in 2014, Healthier Together puts residents at the core of developing health solutions around their own needs rather than force-fitting a system that doesn’t always recognize the complexity, culture, context and circumstances of diverse communities.
For Palm Health Foundation, Healthier Together represents a departure from traditional responsive grant-making, embracing the social determinants of health to implement a truly resident-led initiative viewed through a health equity lens.
Working with complexity is the new norm for working in human systems. If you are not willing to embrace adaptability, you are doing a disservice to the people you are working with.
Healthier Together generated shifts in the bedrock of Palm Health foundation: from a traditional responsive grant-making mindset to becoming a local steward of shared resources; from investing in systems to investing in residents; and from a learning organization to a learning culture.
It was also a risk, seasoned with doses of conflict, doubt and fear, but it was a risk worth taking.
The foundation is learning how to work in complexity—today’s new norm—and embrace adaptability by listening to the voice of community and recognizing outcomes that value social capital, human capital and developing people’s capacity. Partners have learned along our side, joining us in creating a movement where we share responsibility for seeding, stoking and building a system that will produce better health and well-being for all.
The purpose of our website is to guide communities and organizations seeking to embark on a similar initiative and impart lessons learned from Healthier Together by sharing how to:
For a more in-depth understanding of our work, please download our paper, A Shared Purpose, Transforming Communities Through the Social Determinants of Health.
Thank you for sharing in our journey.
Help narrow health disparities among the residents in Palm Beach County
Increase capacity among individuals, organizations and systems to impact lasting and sustainable change related to health and well-being
Establish a learning framework to evaluate the overall impact of the Healthier Together initiative as well as the impact at the community level
Palm Beach County is named by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation a Culture of Health Prize-winning community! Check out our community’s video here.
The Healthier Together initiative is featured, starting on page 164, in the newly published book, Aligning Systems for Health: Two Years of Learning, presented by Georgia Health Policy Center at Georgia State University. Click to download the book.
In ReThink Health’s Unsung Stewards podcast, Palm Health Foundation CEO discusses how the foundation uses a hyperlocal approach in addressing the community’s needs during the COVID-19
Healthier Together Mini Grants Showcase, a learning event, celebrates the diverse resident-led efforts taking place around Palm Beach County
Highlighting the Unity Wall in Lake Worth Beach:
WPTV, Unity Wall Dedicated in Lake Worth Beach
WPBF, Wall of Unity in Lake Worth Beach Brings Community Together
Lake Worth Herald, The Wall for Us All
Download our Healthier Together paper, A Shared Purpose, Transforming Communities Through the Social Determinants of Health.
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