| | | | | | Today & every day, we celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. Join us in celebrating Pride Month! In Connecticut, Health Equity Solutions is committed to advocating for quality health care, which includes providers and services that meet the needs of all our state residents’ identities and backgrounds. | | | | | | | | Linguistic isolation is social isolation created by a low literacy rate in the predominant language. Households struggling to communicate in English often face difficulty explaining their needs and circumstances to social services and healthcare providers, responding to requests for information, and following medical advice provided in English. Professional translation and interpretation services should be embedded in health care, but often are not or are ineffective. Source: Zhang, D., Rajbhandari-Thapa, J., Panda, S., Chen, Z., Shi, L., Li, Y., ... & Emerson, K. G. (2021). Linguistic Isolation and Mortality in Older Mexican Americans: Findings from the Hispanic Established Populations Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly. Health Equity, 5(1), 375-381. | | | | | | | | The next state legislative session begins on February 8, 2023. Meanwhile, all members of the Connecticut General Assembly are up for election in November. Have questions about voter registration? Click here. Want to learn more? Please reach out. Changes are coming to Health Equity Solutions After 7 incredible years leading and growing HES, Tekisha Dwan Everette Ph.D. has accepted an exciting new challenge at a national public health and policy organization. While this news is sad for HES and the entire state of Connecticut, we are incredibly proud that Tekisha is taking this next step to share her talents, skills, and expertise at the national level. We know she will undoubtedly create significant change and spur innovation in her new role. Tekisha will continue at HES through the end of July. The HES Board will be designating an Interim Executive Director effective August 1. Read our Board President's message on the transition: http://ow.ly/HQuB50Jv0re As a thank you for Tekisha's hard work and dedication to health equity in Connecticut, we are creating a montage! Please help us celebrate Tekisha by posting here! The project is not a surprise, but the content will be! Join us in celebrating and sharing why you appreciate and care for Tekisha. Please save the date: On July 29th, join us to celebrate Tekisha Dwan Everette, Ph.D.! More details are coming soon! | | | | | | | | | | Thank you for joining our Path to Equity Workshops! We had an overwhelming turnout and are gearing up to share the revised action steps for policymakers & CT residents who care about equity! STAY TUNED for an updated Path to Equity soon. We want to learn which health equity issues are most important to you AND about how you want to be a part of creating change. Let’s talk about it! What resources are most important to ensure that you and your community are as healthy as possible? AND how do you want to be an agent of change? Please contact our Policy & Communications Specialist, Harley Webley, at hwebley@hesct.org. | |  | | In 2020, Health Equity Solutions began a petition demanding an intentional anti-racist focus in policymaking in the state of Connecticut. Now that the state has declared racism a public health crisis and many towns have moved to action, HES is sharing this summary of progress and challenges in towns that made these declarations. | | | | The HES Advantage is Here! The HES Advantage is an equity-driven training and consulting social enterprise that builds on the great work of Health Equity Solutions. It provides consultation services for diverse community-based organizations, agencies, health systems, providers, and educational institutions that include meeting planning and facilitation, equity-based training and workshops, and equity assessment and advising that will shape policy, programs, and practice. Health Equity Solutions was selected to participate in the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving’s Social Enterprise Accelerator (SEA) program in partnership with the Sara Leonard Group and No Margin, No Mission. Our goal is to raise $126,180 in start-up funds. We can reach this with your help, in addition to a dollar-for-dollar match program of up to a total of $20,000 from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving; we will get there in no time! Here is our outlined milestone timeline and what the start-up funds will cover: | | | | If you are interested in giving and would like more information about our enterprise, The HES Advantage, please email Kevin Collins at kcollins@hesct.org to set up a zoom or phone call. Here are the links to the Fast Pitch Slide Deck and our donor portal to donate to our start-up costs for The HES Advantage. Thank you, and we look forward to partnering with you! | | | | CWCSEO Workshops: Sign up! The Hartford Times, Health Equity Solutions (HES), and the Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity and Opportunity (CWCSEO) are teaming up to offer a series of training to community members on racial equity tools. CT will implement these tools to combat bias in our state policies. Thanks to generous support from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, these workshops are offered at no cost to you and are open to all community members alongside legislators. Participants who complete all three workshops will receive a certification. The workshops will be offered in English and Spanish. Sign up here: https://forms.office.com/r/4s2XqfdUg9 | |  | | | | | If you are having an event and would like HES to partner, please email us at info@hesct.org. | | | | | | Don’t forget to check out our newest product fundraiser! mugs designed by HES staffers Harley Webley and Dashni Sathasivam. They collaborated and designed a beautiful logo that embodies HES and the "The Good Trouble" we love to get ourselves into. "Good Trouble" also pays homage to the late Civil Rights Activist John Lewis. | |  | | |  | This month, HES had the wonderful opportunity to hold our staff outing at the Kitchen at Billings Forge! Thank you to the incredible Kitchen staff for making this a memorable experience for our team! | | | | | | Intern Spotlight! Please join us in welcoming Arushi and Chinye to the HES team! They join us as our newest Policy Interns for the summer! Arushi is a rising undergraduate junior from Yale University. Chinye is a 3rd year medical student from Yale School of Medicine. | | | | | | HES is a non-profit organization located in Connecticut. Our mission is to promote policies, programs, and practices that result in equitable access to health care, increased quality in the delivery of health care, and improved health outcomes for Connecticut residents. | | | | | | | | | | Moving into the second quarter of 2022, Health Equity Solutions has completed the first half of its second book: Black on Both Sides by C. Riley Snorton. Black on Both Sides draws critical connections from historical accounts of Black women and birthing individuals and how it has informed our contemporary idea of the gender binary and its perceived identities. Snorton provides an authentic framework that aids in a deeper understanding of current existing health inequities, with a specific lens on the intersections between blackness and transness and anti-trans legislation and violence. Black on Both Sides directly ties into our work here at Health Equity Solutions as we work to close the gaps in our current health systems by building and supporting racially equitable policies, practices, and programs. We are looking forward to finishing it in the upcoming months. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Health Equity Solutions
53 Oak Street | Hartford, Connecticut 06106
860.461.7637 | info@hesct.org | | | | | | | | | | | |
