NEW BRITAIN (December 28, 2007) --  The board of directors of the Connecticut Health Foundation (CT Health) approved $3,257,300 in grant awards during its fourth quarter board meeting, including $1,375,000 dedicated to a CT Health initiative to address children's mental health.

"This initiative was developed in response to the foundation's strategic children's mental health goal of reducing the number of youth who are at risk of entering either the Juvenile Justice system and/or the most intensive level of mental health treatment due to their mental health problems," says CT Health President & CEO Patricia Baker.

Eighteen-month community-based planning grants of $125,000 were awarded to eleven organizations and municipalities under the Connecticut Health Foundation's Children's Mental Health priority area.The grants support community plans in developing a comprehensive community-based system of early assessment, identification and brief interventions also by providing financial and technical assistance. Under the grant program, communities must identify a team consisting of at least three relevant systems, with ongoing community input and feedback, especially from families who are vulnerable to becoming involved with the Juvenile Justice system and/or the most intensive level of mental health treatment. Organizations and municipalities selected to receive community-based planning grants are:

• Bridges... A Community Support System (Milford)
• City of Norwalk Department of Youth Services (Norwalk)
• Community Health Resources (Enfield)
• The Hartford/West Hartford System of Care (Hartford)
• Lower Naugatuck Valley Parent Child Resource Center, Inc. (Derby)
• Middlesex Hospital Center for Behavioral Health (Middletown)
• New Britain Youth & Family Services (New Britain)
• Town of Manchester Youth Service Bureau (Manchester)
• The Partnership for Kids/PARK Project (Bridgeport)
• Town of Wallingford Department of Youth and Social Services (Wallingford)
• Waterbury Prevention Policy Board (Waterbury)

The Education Development Center, a national organization, received a two-year $600,000 grant award to provide technical assistance to the foundation's Children's Mental Health planning grantees throughout the grant period.

In addition to grants awarded to address children's mental health problems, the CT Health board awarded the following grants under its Racial & Ethnic Health Disparities priority area:

• Naugatuck Valley Project, Inc. (Naugatuck) received a two-year $150,000 award to continue and expand their work in assuring accessible quality medical interpretation services for English as a Second Language members of their communityand to improve the members' health care system experiences.
  
• One World Progressive Institute, Inc. (New Haven), a community-based organization that provides members of the community with topical and health-related information to empower them to make good health care choices, received a two-year $150,000 grant to produce six cable talk shows a year, and to participate in community education events and presentations throughout the greater New Haven area.
  
• Latino Community Services (Hartford) received a one-year $34,500 grant to act as the fiscal agent and pass-through for the Connecticut Health Foundation's Health Leadership Fellows Program's Fellows Honorarium.

Two organizations received three-year grants of $360,000 each to continue improving oral health in their local communities while developing and implementing sustainability strategies:

• Oral Health Bridgeport Initiative (ORBIT), Southwestern AHEC (Bridgeport)
  
• Danbury Public Schools (Danbury)

Other health-related grants were awarded as follows:

• Community Catalyst (New England) was awarded a two-year $100,000 grant to fund its initiative, The New England Alliance for Children's Health, to work with children's advocates and other key stakeholders to implement a strategy aimed at addressing the potential crisis that may result from the veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
  
• Environment and Human Health, Inc. (North Haven) received a two-year $100,000 grant to support general operations, with a focus on programmatic work.They also were granted $10,000 to develop a strategy and statement on its commitment to cultural and linguistic competence.
  
• The Yale University School of Nursing (New Haven) and the State of Connecticut Office of Healthcare Advocate (Statewide) each received a $1900 grant to send representatives to the Families USA Conference in Wash., D.C.

The Connecticut Health Foundation (CT Health) - www.cthealth.org - is the state's largest independent, non-profit grantmaking foundation dedicated to improving the health of the people of Connecticut through systemic change, program innovation and health policy analysis. Since it was established in July of 1999, CT Health has awarded 420 grants in 44 cities and towns totaling nearly $35 million in three priority areas - children's mental health, reducing racial and ethnic health disparities, and oral health.

For additional information, please contact Maryland Grier, Public Affairs Officer, at 860.224.2200, ext. 32 or at maryland@cthealth.org or Monette Goodrich, Vice President of Communications & Public Affairs, at ext. 13 or at monette@cthealth.org.