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Convenings and Presentations

In addition to providing in-kind conference and meeting space for nonprofit organizations and public agencies, we host convenings, guest speakers and presentations at our conference center.

Supportive Housing for Homeless Families: Foster Care Outcomes and Best Practices

On May 14, 2013, we joined Cottage Housing Incorporated to release the Supportive Housing for Homeless Families: Foster Care Outcomes and Best Practices report at Sierra Health Foundation.

Stakeholders and policymakers from throughout the region learned about a successful approach to permanent housing social support and case management services that can break the cycle of abuse and neglect and significantly reduce re-entry into the foster care system at a lower cost to taxpayers.

We were pleased to welcome Dr. Sonja Lenz-Rashid from San Francisco State University, the researcher and author of the report, who shared outcomes of her powerful study of nearly 300 children and youth who had a history in the foster care and child protective services systems.

A panel discussion followed, with Arlene Cullum, Sutter Medical Center Director of Women's and Children's Ambulatory Services and Cottage Housing Incorporated Board Member; Lisa Bates, California Housing and Community Development Deputy Director; Michelle Callejas, Sacramento County Director of Child Protective Services; and Phil Serna, Sacramento County District 1 Supervisor.

Download the Supportive Housing for Homeless Families: Foster Care Outcomes and Best Practices report

Download the Supportive Housing for Homeless Families: Foster Care Outcomes and Best Practices Summary

Download Dr. Sonja Lenz-Rashid's presentation

Creating a Path for Transformation

On Sept. 27, 2012, we convened members of our Sacramento Region Health Care Partnership and other health care stakeholders to celebrate the release of a market analysis of the region's primary care safety net and a regional strategic plan to rethink, revitalize and reform the region's health care system.

Guest speakers included Congresswoman Doris Matsui; Sierra Health Foundation President and CEO Chet Hewitt; Dr. Carmen Nevarez, Vice President of External Relations and Preventive Medicine Advisor at the Public Health Institute; and Dr. Kenneth Kizer, Director of the UC Davis Health System's Institute for Population Health Improvement.

The convening also included a panel discussion with regional health care leaders Robin Affrime, MPH, CEO of CommuniCare Health Centers; James Ellsworth, Interim Executive Director of Capitol Health Network; Ron Groepper, Senior Vice President and Area Manager for Kaiser Foundation Hospitals/Health Plan in Sacramento; Robert Kamrath, Executive Director of CARES (Center for AIDS Research, Education and Services); Carrie Owen Plietz, CEO of Sutter Medical Center; Dr. Claire Pomeroy, CEO of UC Davis Health System, Vice Chancellor for Human Health Sciences and Dean of UC Davis School of Medicine; and Kevin Vaziri, President of Woodland Healthcare.

Videos of the event by chapter:

Video Chapter 1: Congresswoman Doris Matsui, Chet Hewitt and Dr. Carmen Nevarez, as well as market analysis findings presented by Robert Phillips and Abraham Daniels of Sierra Health Foundation

Video Chapter 2: Panel discussion with regional health care leaders

Video Chapter 3: Dr. Kenneth Kizer and Diane Littlefield, Sierra Health Foundation Vice President of Programs and Partnerships

Judith Snow

We were pleased to welcome guest speaker Judith Snow to Sierra Health Foundation on May 17 and 18, 2012, for two powerful workshops titled Inclusion is the Path of Choice! An internationally known speaker, author, community builder, inclusion activist and trainer from Canada, Ms. Snow also is a faculty member of the Asset Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University. A person with limited mobility, Ms. Snow brings a personal perspective to the work of valuing diversity in community development. In her highly interactive workshops, she encouraged participants to think in different ways about inclusion and creating the community they want.

Learn more about Judith Snow at www.judithsnow.org.

Mobilizing Care Delivery Improvement:
The Sacramento Region in the Era of Health Reform

On June 7, 2011, we convened state and national health sector leaders, practitioners and local stakeholders to increase awareness about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and discuss what health care reform means for the Sacramento Region. Co-sponsored by Congresswoman Doris Matsui's office, the Public Health Institute and Teichert Foundation, the convening provided an opportunity for regional leaders and stakeholders to learn about major components of the ACA from keynote speaker John E. McDonough, DPH, MPA, from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Participants also heard perspectives on health care delivery and health care reform from guest speakers Diana Dooley, Secretary of the State of California Health & Human Services Agency; Kim Belshé, MPP, Senior Policy Advisor at the Public Policy Institute of California; Carmela Castellano Garcia, CEO of the California Primary Care Association; Tom Gagen, CEO of Sutter Medical Center; Claire Pomeroy, MD, MBA, CEO of UC Davis Health System; Jonathan Porteus, PhD, CEO of The Effort; Sandy Damiano, PhD, Deputy Director of Sacramento County Primary Health Services; Britta Guerrero, CEO of Sacramento Native American Health Center; Denny Powell, President of Mercy General Hospital; and Patricia Rodriguez, Senior VP and Area Manager at Kaiser Permanente, South Sacramento.

John McDonough's address was filmed by KVIE Public Television and aired in August. View the presentation below.

Resources

John McDonough's Inside National Health Reform online presentation

Lessons from the Implementation of Massachusetts Health Reform (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation)

Care Coordination: Reducing Care Fragmentation in Primary Care (Safety Net Medical Home Initiative)

Meeting Summary

Top photo (left to right): Sierra Health Foundation Director of Program Investments Diane Littlefield, Congresswoman Doris Matsui and Sierra Health Foundation President and CEO Chet Hewitt.

Bottom photo (left to right): John E. McDonough from the Harvard School of Public Health; Kim Belshé, Senior Policy Advisor at the Public Policy Institute of California; and Diana Dooley, Secretary of the State of California Health & Human Services Agency.

Dr. Richard Pan

On July 1, 2010, we were pleased to welcome Dr. Richard Pan to Sierra Health Foundation for a discussion about the Social Determinants of Health. A nationally known speaker on the Social Determinants of Health, Dr. Pan is a physician and an educator at the UC Davis Children's Hospital. As associate professor of pediatrics, he heads the UC Davis Pediatric Residency Program, where he developed a national award-winning program to promote healthy lifestyles by partnering with community groups.

Dr. Pan talked about the factors other than health care that influence health, such as a person's socioeconomic condition, environment, education, income and individual behavior choices — factors that have come to be known as the Social Determinants of Health. Dr. Pan presented an extensive amount of data and insight about topics such as life expectancy, leading causes of death, population health and determinants of health. He also discussed how risk reduction and health promotion strategies influence health development, as well as social emotional development.

Learn more on our Social Determinants of Health Web page.

Mark Friedman

We were pleased to bring internationally renowned author and speaker Mark Friedman to Sierra Health Foundation for three Results-Based Accountability workshops on Oct. 13, 14 and 15, 2009.

 

Friedman is the director of the Fiscal Policy Studies Institute in Santa Fe, N.M., and is the author of the book Trying Hard Is Not Good Enough. He has provided training and consultation on Results-Based Accountability in more than 40 states and in countries around the world, teaching organizations how to use performance measurement for results-based decision making.

Workshop participants learned how to use results to drive decision making and budgeting, how to use baselines to define success and failure, how to identify the most important performance measures and how to build performance accountability in their organizations.

Watch a video of the workshop introduction below.

For more information about Results-Based Accountability, visit the Fiscal Policy Studies Institute Web site.

Pedro Noguera, Ph.D.

Sierra Health's Bannon Island room buzzed with energy on May 11, 2009, when special guest Pedro Noguera spoke about education reform to a group of about 80 educators, elected officials, nonprofits and community members.

A renowned speaker, author and education expert, Noguera is an urban sociologist who focuses on the ways in which schools are influenced by social and economic conditions in the urban environment. He is a professor in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University, and serves as executive director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education and the co-director of the Institute for the Study of Globalization and Education in Metropolitan Settings.

Among the many topics in his inspirational address, Noguera spoke about the challenges facing America's schools and the lack of educational progress being made, citing drop-out rates, which in many of the nation's largest cities are at 50 percent or higher, and the number of graduating students leaving high school unprepared for college. He addressed the need for schools to attract highly qualified teachers and the responsibility of teachers' unions to ensure teacher quality. Noguera also emphasized the need for schools and communities to adopt strategies to empower children and their families, as well as the importance of everyone in the community working together.

Download Pedro Noguera's slide presentation. 

A video of Pedro Noguera's presentation is posted by chapter below.

Video Chapter 1: Introduction by Chet Hewitt, with poetry by Charday Adams and comments by Vajra Watson, Ed.D.

Video Chapter 2: Pedro Noguera: Leaving Children Behind in the USA

Video Chapter 3: Schools Can't Do It Alone

Video Chapter 4: Vulnerable Students and Immigrant Children

Video Chapter 5: Promoting Student Achievement and Healthy Youth Development

Video Chapter 6: Developing Systems of Support and Civic Capacity Building

Video Chapter 7: Questions and Answers

Marian Wright Edelman

Sierra Health was pleased to host the Children's Defense Fund on Feb. 25, 2009, for an important discussion on Dismantling the Cradle to Prison Pipeline, led by Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund. A renowned speaker, author and humanitarian, Edelman spoke to Northern California philanthropists about the need to address the "uneven playing field" that leads to poor children and youth of color being disproportionately tracked into dead-end lives from birth. According to Edelman, a Black boy born in 2001 has a one in three chance and a Latino boy a one in six chance of going to prison in his lifetime.

Edelman talked about the need to end child poverty, gun violence, teen pregnancy and lack of health coverage for children, as well as the need to "reweave families and communities" and provide high-quality early childhood services. Calling on philanthropists and community leaders to unite in this effort, Edelman expressed her desire for funders to work together on specific issues one at a time until each factor in the Cradle to Prison Pipeline has been addressed.

The Children's Defense Fund held a California/National Summit for youth on Feb. 25 at the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria in Sacramento, followed by a summit for adults on Feb. 26. Visit the Children's Defense Fund Web site for more information about this work.

Anthony Iton, M.D., J.D., MPH

Anthony Iton, director and public health officer of the Alameda County Public Health Department, gave a powerful presentation to graduates of Health Leadership Program Class VII and guests at Sierra Health Foundation on April 4, 2008. An advisor to the PBS documentary series Unnatural Causes, which explores racial and socioeconomic inequalities in health, Iton spoke about the causes of disparities in health across communities.

With a primary interest in the health of disadvantaged populations and the contributions of race, class, wealth, education, geography and employment to health status, he has asserted that in every public health area of endeavor, local public health departments must recognize that they are confronted with the enduring consequences of structural poverty, institutional racism and other forms of systemic injustice.

Learn more about this issue on the Unnatural Causes Web site.