AL DÍA NEWS BUSINESS DECEMBER 9 - 16, 2020

DECEMBER 2020

News.com

ADVANCING

COMMUNITY HEALTH

Through various initiatives and partnerships, The Independence Blue Cross Foundation leads the way in promoting innovative ways to positively impact the health of the diverse communities it serves.

By JENSEN TOUSSAINT

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THE INDEPENDENCE BLUE CROSS FOUNDATION

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A LEADER IN COMMUNITY HEALTH

The Foundation has been a leader to nonprofits and academic institutions in Southeastern Pennsylvania for nearly a decade, focusing on areas of impact including access to care, the health care workforce, and nonprofit sustainability. All Foundation programs and initiatives drive to improving the health and health care access for underserved communities throughout the region.

Because of the additional demands created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Foundation accelerated grants totaling $2.4 million to community health centers through its Blue Safety Net program to support the continuity of care in medically underserved communities hardest hit by the pandemic. The Foundation also dedicated more than $1.4 million to nonprofit sustainability and COVID-19 related causes including food insecurity, community testing and domestic violence.

THE FOUNDATION TAKES its Someone You Know® public health awareness campaign to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. to help spread awareness about reducing the stigma of opioid addiction, June 2019.

A leader to nonprofits in southeastern Pennsylvania.

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hroughout its 80-plus year existence, Independence Blue Cross (Independence) has remained committed to its social mission of improving the health and well-being of the communities it serves. The Independence Blue Cross Foundation (Foundation) was launched in 2011 to build upon that mission.

“The Foundation is changing the way health care is delivered in our region,” said Lorina Marshall-Blake, president of the Foundation.

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However, investing in the education and professional development of nurses is one of the Foundation’s top priorities. Through their Nurses for Tomorrow program, the Foundation advances nursing education and leadership through scholarship and experiential learning for the next generation of health care heroes.

To date, the Foundation has awarded nearly $45 million to more than 200 community organizations that have reached more than 300,000 residents in the Southeastern Pennsylvania region.

“The Foundation has been on the forefront of most health issues that really impact the community,” said Marshall-Blake. “I think the community thinks of us as a valuable partner who is there to listen, and to help them make a difference together.”

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THROUGH THE NURSES for Tomorrow program, the Foundation advances nursing education and leadership through scholarship and experiential learning for the next generation of health care heroes.

“We are more than just a check,” said Marshall-Blake.

“While grant-making is important, it’s also been important for us to do more than that.”

The Foundation launched three public awareness campaigns in 2019, including one of the most significant.

Someone You Know®, is an anti-stigma campaign that shares diverse stories of real people in our communities who have found a life in recovery, are supporting a loved one with an opioid addiction, or sadly lost a loved one due to overdose.

The Someone You Know® podcast currently reaches individuals in 49 states and 28 countries.

“It changed the narrative on substance use disorder,” said Marshall-Blake. “You could see the real impact of sharing real peoples’ stories and encouraging people not to give up hope, that tomorrow can be a brighter day.”

EQUITABLE AND CULTURALLY COMPETENT CARE

Health inequities have been exacerbated in communities of color, underscoring the need to prioritize equitable access to health care for minority and under-resourced communities.

The Foundation awards grants to nonprofits who work to prevent, reduce, or eliminate health care disparities to achieve op-

timal health among racial and ethnic minorities.

The Foundation was the first to support two initiatives that increase access to COVID-19 testing and eliminated health disparities in Black and Hispanic communities by partnering with the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium and Latino Connection’s COVID-19 mobile RV response unit, called CATE (Community-Accessible Testing & Education).

Additionally, the Foundation understands the connection of culturally competent care to stronger patient relationships. Often, it is beneficial for a patient to see someone who looks like them and can understand their experiences and show empathy.

The Foundation’s Nursing Internship Program prepares the next generation of nurses to effectively understand and interact with people across cultures.

“We elevated our nursing program to focus on diversity and leadership,” said Marshall-Blake. “We’re trying to help build a pipeline of diverse nurse educators and researchers.”

As co-chair of the Pennsylvania Action Coalition’s Nurse Diversity Council, Marshall-Blake and her team have been working closely to increase diversity and cultural competency in the region.

“We enjoy coming to work every day and helping to change the landscape of the communities.” said Marshall-Blake. “We have a love and passion for the work that we do, and all our work has been possible through our shared mission with the community organizations we support,” said Marshall-Blake.

“We walk side by side with them.”

“The Foundation has been on the forefront of most health issues that really impact the community.”

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Leading in Community Health

MORE THAN JUST A CHECK

While the primary responsibility of the Foundation is grant-making, the Foundation is a convener of diverse organizations, a force for new ideas and a thought leader in addressing emerging health needs in the Southeastern Pennsylvania region.

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JOSÉ MACIEL and ANTONIO RENTERIA. Photo by Eric Sucar of University Communications, University of Pennsylvania.

The Nurses for Tomorrow José Maciel and Antonio Renteria cofounded Cultivando Juntos, a program aimed toward helping Latino farm workers improve their health habits.

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ealth can be heavily influenced by time, knowledge and accessibility among various other factors. José Maciel and Antonio Renteria those experiences these factors firsthand. Those experiences led them to create the non-profit Cultivando Juntos, (“Cultivating Together” in English) in 2019. Cultivando Juntos is a community-based program aimed at improving the health and well-being of Latino farmers at their workspace.

“We wanted to use our nursing expertise to arm farmworkers with healthy foods and supportive knowledge on a week-by-week basis to develop healthy habits,” said Maciel.

Graduates of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Maciel and Renteria pursued the field of community nursing largely as a result of their parents’ upbringing. Growing up in central Washington, Maciel’s parents worked in a number of orchards, villages and agricultural warehouses, while Renteria’s father worked in maintenance and in the carrot industry in Uvalde, Texas.

“I saw how tough it was to live such a labor-intensive life, and also manage one’s health,” said Maciel. “At the same time, when I was in high

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school, my mother was diagnosed with Lymphoma. There was one nurse on the floor who spoke Spanish, and when she visited my mother, I saw how much it lifted her spirits.

I wanted to be the same resource for patients like my mother in the future, so I decided to become a nurse.”

“I have always been drawn to nursing because nurses spend the most time with the patient, and build the strongest relationships with them,” said Renteria. “It was the combination of what my parents did in our daily living that inspired me to become a nurse and major in nutrition science.”

A valuable nursing experience During the summer before their senior years at the University of Pennsylvania, Maciel and Renteria became nurse interns with the Independence Blue Cross Foundation, and were assigned to a local community health center to gain practical clinical experience.

Both of Mexican descent, Maciel and Renteria met during their freshman year of college and formed a strong friendship that helped them co-found an organization that aims to improve the health of farmworkers, many of whom are Latino.

Renteria worked at Mary Howard Health Center, a comprehensive primary health care center for the homeless, where he learned how to collaborate with social workers to address the social determinants of health for the community. Maciel worked at Puentes de Salud, a volunteer-run community clinic that serves the Latino population in Philadelphia, and studied the increasing rates of nutrition-related diseases in the Latino community.

By promoting a healthy lifestyle through understanding, encouragement, and evidence-based practices, Maciel and Renteria work to bolster disease prevention.

“We realized the life-changing impacts that could be made if we bring healthy interventions to people where we cannot miss them: in the workplace,” said Maciel.

“I saw how tough it was to live such a labor-intensive life, and also manage one’s health.”

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Cultivating Healthy Habits

MACIEL AND RENTERIA with fellow interns at a Blue Crew volunteer event at MANNA.

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Maciel presented research as part of his internship experience during the Nursing Internship Program Recognition Event, Aug. 3, 2018.

“We knew how important it was to support them in any way we could when the pandemic struck.”

Antonio Renteria

During their senior year at Penn Nursing, Maciel and Renteria came up with the idea of Cultivando Juntos and pitched it to their mentor, Dr. Adriana Perez, assistant professor of nursing at Penn Nursing. Although initially they were interested in partnering with Philadelphia’s restaurant businesses, Dr. Perez connected them with individuals nearby who needed their help: the Latino community she works with in Kennett Square.

Less than an hour away from the city, and in their own backyard, Maciel and Renteria met with farm administrators and clinicians at South Mill to see the work they did in the mushroom capital of the world. In Kennett Square, like in many other farm-working communities, workers often live below the federal poverty line despite working 60-plus-hour work weeks.

Each week, Cultivando Juntos visited the farm and talked to the workers. They gave them recipes, and meal kits and ingredients that would teach them about healthier food options. It started as a three-month program consisting of 12 sessions and grew to have more than 60 participants.

“We tried to encourage individuals to try these new life-

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style habits by seeing it done in front of them,” said Maciel.

Renteria and Maciel applied for the 2019 Penn President’s Engagement Prize, and were awarded a $100,000 grant to help carry out the vision for Cultivando Juntos even further. “We are thankful that we can now expand Cultivando Juntos’ reach and show more local employers the difference we can make in farmworkers’ lives if we begin to reinvest in their needs, beginning with providing weekly healthy food packages at the workplace.”

Impacting Kennett Square

Due to the pandemic, Maciel and Renteria are unable to visit South Mill. Since then, they’ve been looking for ways to help other community partners and discovered La Comunidad Hispana and Kennett Area Community Services, two organizations that provide great support for the community by handing out boxes of food and helping people pay rent to avoid homelessness. Maciel and Renteria now volunteer with Kennett Area Community Services on Fridays and help with handing out boxes that contain a month’s worth of non-perishable goods.

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“We realized the lifechanging impacts that could be made if we bring healthy interventions to people... in the workplace.”

José Maciel

“Although we couldn’t continue our traditional work with Cultivando Juntos in Kennett Square, we knew how important it was to support them in any way we could when the pandemic struck,” said Renteria.

The healthy food options will be designed to help prevent conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, which are very prevalent in the Latino community.“ We see the increasing rates of diabetes in our area, and something needs to be done to address that,” said Maciel.

Cultivando Juntos will also be contributing to the construction of the commercial kitchen with its remaining funds.

If there is one message the two would like to share about farm workers, it’s the hard-working and vibrant nature of their community. “Latino migrants are smart, passionate, hardworking people. As products of farm-working families, Antonio and I know firsthand that the people we work with at the farm are resilient and adaptable to change. We wish more people could get this kind of exposure working in their community and serving the Latino population,” said Maciel.

Whether it’s working within the nursing field or more directly in the farm-working community, they say their goal always remains to help others and make a positive, long-lasting impact.

For more information on the Independence Blue Cross Foundation’s Nursing Internship Program, visit ibxfoundation.org/ nursing-internship

Editor’s note: Renteria now works as a Community Health Registered Nurse at the City of Laredo Health Department. Maciel is an emergency room nurse at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia.

RENTERIA RESEARCH PRESENTATION, Nursing Internship Program Recognition Event, Aug. 3, 2018.

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Cultivating Healthy Habits

Cultivando Juntos and Kennett Area Community Services plan to create a community kitchen in Kennett Square. Kennett Area Community Services would be responsible for funding, while Renteria and Maciel would serve as advisors for how to handle and create the healthy, low-cost foods that would be offered to the community.

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Esperanza: A lifeline of health for Latinos in Philadelphia In 1989, Esperanza Health Center officially opened its doors on North Fifth Street in “El Centro de Oro,” where many Latino and Spanish-speaking patients lived and continue to live now.

Of the roughly 15,000 individual patients Esperanza sees each year, about 84% are Latino.

At Esperanza, everyone who cares for patients must be competent in English and Spanish. Its comprehensive primary care services include adult health, pediatrics, dental, prenatal, behavioral health, nutrition counseling, spiritual care and more.

In addition to its North Fifth Street location, Esperanza has two other locations, in Hunting Park and a newer site in Kensington, which opened in 2019 at the intersection of Kensington & Allegheny Avenues.

Susan Post is the executive director of Esperanza Health Center.

Esperanza Health Center has changed the way health is addressed in the most underserved communities in the city.

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or more than 30 years, Esperanza Health Center has been committed to providing access to affordable, high-quality health care and wellness services for the Spanish-speaking community in North Philadelphia.

It began with the vision of Dr. Carolyn Klaus, a Philadelphia family physician who wanted to help the most underserved patients. She found that it was the Spanish-speaking communities in North Philadelphia that had the fewest doctors and available health services.

“Her idea was to try to reduce any barriers to care, including financial, cultural and language,” said Susan Post, executive director of Esperanza Health Center.

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INDEPENDENCE BLUE CROSS FOUNDATION: A SOURCE OF FUNDING

The work and services Esperanza provide are helped greatly by the grants it receives. The Independence Blue Cross Foundation has supported Esperanza through its Blue Safety Net Program for nearly a decade, increasing access to primary health care and social services for Latino and minority residents in North Philadelphia. Esperanza was also awarded a grant from the Foundation’s Supporting Treatment and Overdose Prevention (STOP) initiative in 2018, which helped expand services to its new facility in Kensington — the epicenter of the opioid crisis.

“We were small and trying to meet the growing needs of more people, and this has continuously been possible because of the Foundation’s grants,” said Post.

Unrestricted grants have also allowed Esperanza to expand its programs and additional services to meet the unique needs of each patient that go beyond primary care. This flexibility in funding enabled Esperanza to offer social

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“Esperanza is the Spanish word for ‘hope’. That’s what we’re trying to do — bring hope into our community in a healthy way.”

Susan Post

services for uninsured and underinsured patients for little or no cost. It also helped Esperanza to make enhancements to their bilingual patient portal, where patients can access information about their care, schedule appointments and ask questions.

As part of its comprehensive addiction recovery services, the Kensington site offers medication-assisted treatment for those in recovery. Patients can also attend group sessions with Esperanza’s behavioral health consultants. The goal is to offer holistic care that helps not only those battling addiction, but their families and the rest of the community.

“This is a place where we can make a real difference,” said Post. “The Foundation’s support makes us feel that we’re not on our own.”

THE GLOBAL CHALLENGE OF COVID-19

Esperanza has met the added burdens created by the pandemic by increasing access to testing in underserved and minority commu-

nities that are disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Esperanza offers free COVID-19 testing at two locations: drive-up testing by appointment five days a week at its Hunting Park site, and no-appointment-needed testing three days a week in partnership with Rock Ministries in Kensington.

“When the virus started, it was important to be able to do as much testing as possible, to make it more available to people that aren’t already Esperanza patients,” said Post. “By partnering with Rock Ministries, we were also able to test people who are homeless.”

When people are tested for COVID-19, the Esperanza staff ask about their overall health to determine if they are receiving regular care and have a primary care doctor. If not, they are counseled about the services Esperanza offers and invited to become a patient.

“Esperanza is the Spanish word for ‘hope’.

That’s what we’re trying to do — bring hope into our community in a healthy way,” says Post.

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New Ways to Address Health

ESPERANZA TESTING STAFF.

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SOMEONE YOU KNOW

®

cially his father, Cruz’s battle with addiction started during his early 20s. During that time, he was in and out of incarceration for drug dealing.

After losing his father while incarcerated, he began using opioids to help mask the pain and depression of his loss.

At one point, a judge told him that he either had to make a change or he would spend the rest of his life in prison. That was the pivotal moment when Cruz realized he needed mental health services to get to the core of his addiction. “It was in prison where I started my opioid addiction, and it was in prison where I ended it,” Cruz said.

Ramon Cruz’s recovery is based on a spiritual journey and principal belief.

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A campaign that shows a different side of addiction and inspires hope in recovery.

he opioid crisis has been a major issue in the United States since the late 1990s, claiming nearly 48,000 lives. According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than 130 people die every day from opioid-related drug overdoses.

The Independence Blue Cross Foundation’s (Foundation) Someone You Know® campaign aims to reduce the stigma of opioid addiction, inspire hope, and empower others to seek help and treatment.

Ramon Cruz and Luis Soto are two Latinos of Puerto Rican heritage and current Philadelphia residents. They spoke about their experiences with addiction and their paths toward recovery. For both, it was a personal tragedy that led them to drugs. After years battling addiction, both men reached a point where they wanted to turn their lives around and start anew. These are their stories.

RAMON CRUZ

Ramon Cruz grew up in the Kensington/Fairhill section of Philadelphia. Very close to his family, espeB10 • DECEMBER 9 - 16, 2020 •

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Cruz said his recovery is based on a spiritual journey. After venturing down several paths towards recovery, he finally surrendered his will over to his higher power: a principal belief of addiction recovery.

It was his time in a recovery house where he says he learned more about himself and as a person of color. He learned about the disproportionate impact that drug laws and the prison system have on Black and Latino communities.

“While members of some communities enter treatment programs and rebuild broken relationships, some members of communities of color often are just incarcerated,” he said, noting additional struggles of poverty, substandard education, employment, housing and food insecurity as other factors Black and Latino communities often disproportionately face. “A lot of the challenges are due to the stigma people in recovery face,” he added.

Cruz has seen a shift within the prison system over the years, with many more programs geared toward helping Latinos and other communities of color succeed during their recovery process. Today, there many programs and pathways for people in recovery such as Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT), The Amity In-Prison Therapeutic Community (TC) program, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and more.

“I think the criminal justice system has done a great job in offering mental health and treatment,” said Cruz. “It’s giving people an option now.”

LUIS SOTO

Luis Soto was born in Guayama and raised in Salinas, Puerto Rico. He is the third youngest of seven sisters and six brothers. Growing up, he loved school and playing sports. He came to the United States in 1993 when he was 21, like many, to find the American Dream.

Initially, he worked with one of his younger brothers, who was as Luis says, “running the streets,” and getting into trouble. Unfortunately, Soto followed that same path, fighting, selling drugs and participating in illegal activities.

When Soto’s five-month old son tragically passed away, it hit him especially hard. He turned to drugs to help him deal with his intense pain and emotions. From that point, he felt his life spiraling out of control. “I took the wrong path after that,” said

Soto and Cruz view their participation in Someone You Know® as symbols of hope and positivity for those in recovery.

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Soto shared a similar sentiment about wanting to help others through Someone You Know® and being an inspiration to others to have the confidence to tell their own stories. “I want to be honest and transparent about my story, because that’s who I used to be, who I am, and where I’m going.”

MAKING AN IMPACT

In the years that Cruz and Soto have been in recovery, (5 for Cruz, almost 10 for Soto) each has helped others find the support they need.

Today, both work for the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS) as certified peer recovery specialists.

Luis Soto works as a peer recovery specialist where he engages with, listens to and supports the community.

Soto was incarcerated many times, including one eight-year sentence. It was in prison, he says, where he began to mentally mature. “I was tired of doing the same thing and expecting different results. I blamed everybody and everything around me for my life,” he recalled.

Now Soto has a different perception on life and understands that consequences come from the decisions that he makes. December 31, 2010 was the last day Soto ever used drugs and has been in recovery ever since. “It was that day that I had clarity in my life and the desire to change my ways, as well help others.”

Someone You Know®

For Soto and Cruz, their participation in the Someone You Know® Campaign is grounded in the belief that everyone has a unique story to tell. “I’m still healing by sharing my story,” said Cruz.

He tells his story in many ways, including at crisis intervention training, Narcan training sessions, and at faith-based churches and more. “It’s something that I really love to do, to let people know that there is hope, and that you can heal,” he added.

People who do not know Cruz have reached out to him through social media to share how impactful his story is to them. It has also made a profound impact on his family. “I could not tell you how proud my family is of where I’m today,” said Cruz, adding that the Someone You Know® campaign has made him a better person.

“That is really the foundation of the work that I do,” said Cruz.

“It’s community-driven, listening to the community’s voice. It’s about a better quality of life in the community.”

With DBHIDS, Cruz has contributed to a number of different initiatives, including the designation of a quarantine site in Center City Philadelphia. He has also helped two organizations - Esperanza and Rock Ministries - come together to bring a COVID-19 testing site to Kensington. In October of 2019, Ramon was appointed by Mayor Kenney as one of the Commissioners for The Mayor’s Commission of Addiction & Recovery.

In addition to his work at DBHIDS, Cruz hosts a radio show called Kensington Pulse, to promote good things happening in that community.

“The show, [which is on hiatus due to Covid-19,] focuses on the positive aspects in Kensington. We all know the negative things that happen there, so I try to break down the stigma surrounding behavioral challenges while also helping people through the criminal justice system,” he said.

Pulling from his own experiences on how difficult it was to transition to life post-incarceration; Cruz wants people to know that recovery is possible and there is good that can come out of these horrible situations.

“The show provides a platform for people to talk about their journey, “he says. “It gives hope to the people that struggle and to those in recovery.”

For Soto, working at DBHIDS’ Community Wellness Engagement Unit is the best job he has ever had. As a peer recovery specialist, he can engage the community, listen them and support them. “This job brings me joy because I’m doing what I love,” he says. “Somebody helped me to be where I’m at today, so that’s what I’m doing with the next person.”

In recovery, Soto knows the challenges of language barriers and says that being bi-lingual goes a long way towards helping a larger number of people. “I’m a community member also, and sometimes the best way to help motivate somebody is to sit down and give that person some time, to listen to that person.” said Soto.

By openly telling their stories through Someone You Know®, Soto and Cruz are esteemed advocates for recovery, and an inspiration for hope and change.

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The Power of Recovery

Soto. “ I forgot about my first-born son, who’s now 29 years old”.

In July 2019, the department launched the Community Wellness Engagement Unit, a multilingual engagement team designed to provide greater access to wellness-related resources and support for all communities within its scope. In their roles, they give back to the community and provide valuable resources to those who need it most.

CATE

The Independence Blue Cross Foundation supports the state’s first mobile response unit to provide COVID-19 testing and education throughout Pennsylvania, addressing minority and underserved communities.

Created by Latino Connection and known as CATE, Community-Accessible Testing & Education, the unit is equipped to conduct COVID-19 testing on-site through a mobile RV vehicle while also educating the public on how to stay healthy and safe. Those interested in visiting CATE can find the tour schedule on the CATE website https://catemobileunit.com/tour-schedule/ or at facebook.com/CATEmobileunit.