Healthcare is Listening | La Salud se Fortalece Cuando Escuchamos las Voces de la Comunidad

Dear Friends,

I hope that your summer has been filled with friends and family and joy. I’m sure that, like me, many of you are now leaning into the routine of the school year. At the Healthcare Foundation we are gearing up for an exciting fall. In this issue you will read about the impactful expansion of behavioral health services at Alliance Medical Center, which we are so proud to have supported.

Additionally, I am thrilled to share the Healthcare Foundation Northern Sonoma County’s strategic plan for 2025–2028—a thoughtful blueprint designed to create a healthier and more equitable future. This document isn’t just a plan; it’s a heartfelt commitment to transforming healthcare access and equity for all who call northern Sonoma County home.

In October 2024, board members, staff, and community partners gathered to share their visions for a thriving northern Sonoma County. Through a participatory planning session, they identified strengths and barriers, and outlined concrete steps to drive meaningful progress. This collaborative approach ensures the plan reflects the community’s wisdom and lived experiences.

At the core of this plan are four strategic pillars that embody the Healthcare Foundation’s mission to eliminate health inequities and foster a sense of belonging:

1. Healthcare Advocacy & Partnerships: Elevating community voices to shape just and responsive health policies through advocacy and collaboration.
2. Healthcare Workforce Pipelines: Increasing the diversity of bilingual and bicultural health providers to ensure equitable care and access to care. This includes investing in education pathways for underrepresented groups.
3. Capacity-Building Grants: Providing general operating support to strengthen nonprofit effectiveness and stability, especially for organizations rooted in and serving marginalized communities.
4. Community-Led Solutions: Uplifting community voices and grassroots leadership to improve health outcomes and increase social capital.

In addition to our pillars of work, we are proud to share our approach to philanthropy, which is at the heart of our mission. Our plan calls for building relationships rooted in trust and shared purpose as the guiding star of the Foundation’s approach to fundraising and granting. This includes prioritizing flexible funding, multi-year commitments, and trust-based giving practices.

This is not the same Healthcare Foundation you knew. We are experts, leaning into local data to fund collaborative initiatives to meet the needs and gaps in our region’s system of care. I look forward to hearing your feedback and engaging with you around our vision for a healthier tomorrow.

I wish you all the best and, as always, would love the opportunity to meet with you personally. Please reach out anytime so we can do this good work together.

Take care,

Amy Ramirez
Executive Director

---

Alliance Medical Center’s New Windsor Wellness Space

Expanding Behavioral Health Care Access in Northern Sonoma County

In July, Alliance Medical Center opened Windsor Wellness, its new Behavioral Health offices located in central Windsor, as part of an expansion of its behavioral health services and in response to the significant need for bilingual and bicultural services in northern Sonoma County.

Simultaneously, Alliance has launched a Behavioral Health Talent Pathway program “to grow and retain a diverse mental health workforce by offering internships, clinical supervision, and career pathways for local students and early-career professionals,” according to Alliance CEO Sue Labbe, who says the new Windsor Wellness site was “born out of an urgent and growing need for accessible mental health services in northern Sonoma County.”

“Rates of anxiety, depression, trauma, and substance use continue to rise, particularly among low-income, Spanish-speaking, and rural residents,” she explains. “Our patients and providers have been struggling to access timely behavioral health care. In response, we launched a strategic initiative to expand our capacity and build a more sustainable, community-rooted behavioral health workforce.”

The expansion was made possible in part through a grant from Sonoma County funded by Measure O, approved by voters in 2020 to provide a steady and reliable source of funding to expand mental health and homelessness services over the next decade.

Additionally, the Healthcare Foundation awarded a grant to Alliance to help cover the cost of leasing the new Windsor Wellness space over its critical first year.

As an FQHC serving northern Sonoma County, Alliance has been a key partner in the Healthcare Foundation’s Mental Health Talent Pipeline, offering traineeships in which third-year USF graduate students in counseling psychology serve their largely Spanish-speaking patient population.
Alliance’s Behavioral Health Talent Pathway program—launched alongside the new Windsor site—builds directly on the Healthcare Foundation’s Mental Health Talent Pipeline initiative, offering paid internships and supervision for bilingual, bicultural providers.

Read More About Windsor Wellness (2 min read)

---

Welcome to our three new Mental Health Talent Pipeline students!

Check out their profiles on our Mental Health Talent Pipeline page, and stay tuned to upcoming newsletters for interviews with this talented trio!