Search Results for:

Women’s Community Clinic

Women’s Community Clinic

At Vesper Society, we seek out overlooked communities and help them devise ways to create a healthy future. One of the ways we do this is by supporting the Women’s Community Clinic (the Clinic) in San Francisco. Though San Francisco is known as a thriving and prosperous city, many of its residents—especially low-income, homeless, and marginalized women—have limited or no access to preventative healthcare. The Women’s Community Clinic, founded in 1999 by a group of volunteer graduates from the UCSF School of Nursing, believes that preventive, educational care is essential to lifelong health and that all women deserve excellent healthcare, regardless of their ability to pay. The Clinic works hard to ensure that each client feels comfortable and safe in a warm and welcoming environment. Their treatments are culturally sensitive, evidence-based, and tailored to each client’s needs and circumstances. The Clinic provides a full range of client-centered clinical services including acute and chronic primary care, reproductive health services, integrated mental health counseling, and referrals to onsite prenatal care. In San Francisco’s Western Addition neighborhood, the Clinic’s work addresses some troubling statistics; 25% of Western Addition residents use the emergency room as their primary source of care and only 6-9% are receiving preventative healthcare. In San Francisco’s Mission District, the Clinic’s Outreach Program provides health education services to homeless and marginalized women. The Mission’s Workforce Development program and the Western Addition’s Health Training Program, which focuses on African American women, provide valuable training to the next generation of healthcare providers, leaders, and advocates, and keeps the offered services affordable for all. Today, the Clinic serves more than 4,000 San Francisco women and girls over the age of 12, of which 91% are uninsured and most are living at or below the Federal Poverty level. Vesper Society’s support allowed for the... Read More

Modoc Medical Center’s Tele-Diabetes Care Program

Modoc Medical Center’s Tele-Diabetes Care Program

Located in the rural northeastern portion of California, Modoc Medical Center (MMC) has seen to the healthcare needs of its community since 1951. A 16-bed, critical access hospital providing family practice medicine, emergency services, and physical therapy, MMC serves the residents of Alturas and the surrounding area, covering about 4,500 square miles. MMC also operates a skilled nursing facility and provides other ancillary services. MMC’s mission is to elevate the provision of healthcare by creating a partnership with its patients, employees, businesses, and community. Embedded in this mission statement is the fundamental belief that success depends on the ability to provide quality healthcare services to patients and establish the processes and culture that puts patients at the center of the work. In a community with very limited resources in helping patients manage chronic diseases, MMC developed the Comprehensive Diabetes Care Program. Vesper Society supported MMC’s expansion of this program by providing group telehealth diabetes education classes that include a diabetic educator, a dietician, and a pharmacist. This comprehensive educational approach provides patients with the knowledge they need to manage their diabetes. Through this program, MMC and Vesper sought to improve the health and well-being of Modoc County residents and to give them the tools to continue helping... Read More

Clinicas de Salud del Pueblo

Clinicas de Salud del Pueblo

In the rural desert of southeast California’s Imperial County, one in five children are affected by asthma—a percentage higher than the national average. Thankfully, the community is home to Clinicas de Salud del Pueblo. Clinicas’ mission is to improve the health and well-being of Imperial and East Riverside counties by providing direct access to affordable, comprehensive, quality primary and preventive health care for high-risk and underserved residents, all in a manner consistent with their dignity and identity. Recognizing a community need, Vesper Society supported Clinicas in starting a comprehensive pediatric asthma program that includes asthma education, environmental assessments and remediation, chronic care coordination, and home visits by Community Health Workers or “Promotoras.” Vesper’s funding support allowed Clinicas to continue their important work improving the health and well-being of Imperial and East Riverside Counties and enabled them to tackle the very important issue of pediatric asthma in the community.  Click here to read a summary of the Respira Sano Asthma Toolkit they developed and that is available for distribution. In August 2015, with Vesper’s support, Clinicas is developing telemedicine services, especially as part of their new integrated behavioral health... Read More

California Lutheran University Interns

California Lutheran University Interns

California Lutheran University (CLU) educates leaders for a global society who are strong in character and judgment, confident in their identity and vocation, and committed to service and justice.  Vesper Society knows that communities and institutions can be transformed when people are approached with respect, hope, passion, and inspiration. CLU’s Interfaith Allies presented an opportunity for Vesper Society to create the CLU intern program in memory of Vesper’s co-founder Bob Cummings who served on the CLU Board of Regents.  Vesper’s support made it possible for five students and three faculty members from CLU’s Interfaith Allies to attend Interfaith Youth Core Leadership Institutes in 2012.  Since then, the program has blossomed. Interfaith Allies values pluralism, tackles stereotypes, supports faith formation, and develops interfaith competencies for leadership.  Service learning, internships, off-campus study, and experiential education provide students with opportunities to build civic leadership skills. Joining other universities in Water to Thrive’s push to spread awareness about the global water crisis, CLU’s water-wise campaign culminated with a weeklong challenge for students to track their water usage and consumption.  Participants only drank tap water and donated the money they would have spent on other beverages to build a well in Ethiopia. By linking arms with student and faculty leaders at California Lutheran University, Vesper Society is part of a growing network that helps facilitate change to establish long-term solutions for overlooked communities all over the world.  Visit CLU Interfaith Allies’ Facebook page... Read More

Connecting to Care Telehealth Services

Connecting to Care Telehealth Services

In 2011, the Health Resources and Services Administration stated that, compared to urban and suburban Americans, rural Americans with behavioral health disorders are significantly less likely to receive any type of treatment for their behavioral health due to lack of resources. And, in an era of increased poverty levels, travel costs are an even greater barrier to rural residents receiving specialty services not locally available. Connecting to Care (CtoC) provides charitable health services using innovative technology to connect underserved populations to care and promotes the health and well-being of individuals regardless of their economic status. Medical providers in a number of rural sites in Northern California reported that telepsychiatry and telebehavioral health programs were unavailable or unaffordable. With support from Vesper Society, these programs are now operational in eleven clinics in Plumas, El Dorado, Modoc, Nevada, and Shasta Counties. CtoC has provided over 1,000 telebehavioral health visits to rural partner sites since the program’s inception. Connecting to Care, located in Grass Valley and Redding, California, also provides remote specialty bi-lingual physician-level adult/child psychiatric care and the services of licensed clinical psychologists, nurse practitioners, and licensed clinical social workers. They conduct programs on-site in their Redding office as well as remotely in rural health clinic sites. Vesper Society knows that rural areas need more attention. Connecting to Care’s Telebehavioral Health Services Program has clearly created long-term solutions that improve the health and well-being of the medically underserved, rural, and frontier Northern California... Read More

John Muir Community Health Alliance – Mobile Dental Clinic

John Muir Community Health Alliance – Mobile Dental Clinic

Contra Costa was in dire need of dental services for underserved and low-income communities. In response to that need, The Dental Collaborative of Contra Costa’s Mobile Dental Clinic program has been providing free dental services for the region’s youth since 2004. With Vesper Society’s support, the Mobile Dental Clinic has provided 11,041 dental visits to 5,086 children. Additionally, over 47,000 children received oral health assessments in schools and community sites and over 25,000 received fluoride applications. Of the children the program serves in Contra Costa County, only 17 percent have insurance. The Dental Collaborative of Contra Costa County is comprised of Contra Costa County Health Services, John Muir Community Health Alliance, Brookside Community Health Center, La Clínica de la Raza, and Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Bay Area in California. As the program celebrates ten years of service to the community, their 2014 focus is to provide dental services directly at school sites in West Contra Costa County, allowing children to miss less school while receiving dental care. Vesper Society supported the Dental Collaborative’s mission to provide access to high quality dental services, to improve health outcomes, and to link patients to a dental and medical home for ongoing... Read More

Pin It on Pinterest