The past few months have been a new experience for us all, with many changes in both our home and work lives. You have all been so focused on adapting your programs and services to continue meeting community needs that you may not have had the time or resources to invest in yourself. But the health of the people who serve our community is critical to the health of our community. Last week we wrapped up the final two “May is Mental Health Month” informational webinars (if you missed any of the presentations throughout the month you can find them by clicking here .) In the spirit of Mental Health Month and the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19, Moses Taylor Foundation is allocating grant funds to promote mental health awareness in the workplace.

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How to Apply for a One-Time Grant for Your Team

To apply for a mini-grant, please complete this short application form.

• Application deadline is Friday, June 19.
  
• All nonprofit organizations are welcome to apply, regardless of whether they have a current grant with the Foundation. Participation will in no way impact eligibility for future Foundation funding.
  
• Grants awarded will average $1,000, but larger teams may warrant larger grant awards.
  
• Any nonprofit organization based in our 11-county footprint (Bradford, Carbon, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Monroe, Pike, Schuylkill, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Wayne and Wyoming) is welcome to apply.
  
• Only one idea per organization, please.

Resources:

To inspire your thinking, we’ve compiled a few additional resource links:

• American Psychiatric Association Foundation’s Center for Workplace Mental Health
• The Working Well Toolkit
• ICU Awareness Campaign
• Showing Employee Appreciation During Extreme Circumstances"
• "How to Form a Mental Health Employee Resource Group"
• "‘We lose track of time’: How agencies are helping employees with mental health issues now"

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We intend to fund a variety of innovative projects that reflect a larger organizational commitment to supporting workplace mental health. We will share all the ideas we receive and announce mini-grants for the winning ideas at the beginning of July.

We're excited for this opportunity to support mental health awareness and well-being in our partner organizations, and look forward to receiving your ideas!

Jeff Smith
Program Officer
Moses Taylor Foundation

This past month, Moses Taylor Foundation partnered with Lackawanna County and the Lackawanna County System of Care, Scranton Area Community Foundation and brought an awareness campaign to social media. Check out the gallery below of the helpful facts and advice from Mental Health America that were shared with partners and friends online.

In addition to the social media campaign, Moses Taylor Foundation offered a series of webinars highlighting what you can do daily to prioritize your mental health, build resiliency in the face of trauma and obstacles, and support those around you who may be struggling. The mental health webinars were recorded and can be viewed at your convenience.

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Thank You to Our Partners in Community Wellness

Every spring the Moses Taylor Foundation team comes together for a day-long retreat. Our fiscal year begins July 1 and the spring retreat provides time to reflect and plan the year ahead. One year into our strategic plan, this spring’s retreat focused on adaptive strategy---balancing clarity and focus with the flexibility to pivot in response to changing needs. Little did we know when we gathered the first week in March, how quickly we would all be pivoting to adapt to COVID-19.

Our response to COVID-19 continues to evolve. This newsletter describes how we’re leaning into responsive grantmaking and capacity building while our school-based health and older adult isolation initiatives are reevaluating next steps. As we pivot, your feedback is shaping our response.

Please take a moment to complete the Institute for Public Policy and Economic Development’s COVID-19 Survey to help leaders across our region understand the impact of COVID-19 on your organization and the people you serve. We know uncertainty persists and needs continue to change. Let’s stay in touch to identify the best ways of working together.

What this newsletter includes:

• Responsive Grantmaking Update
• Grantee Highlight: Supporting Professional Wage Increase
• News Feature: Impact of CARE Act
• Capacity Building: The Board's Role During a Crisis
• Grantee Highlight: Community Health Planning Grant
• Expanding School-based Health: School Nurse Needs Assessment Update
• Operations Update: Working Remotely
• Reducing Older Adult Isolation: Convening Recap

While 1 in 5 people will experience a mental illness during their lifetime, everyone faces challenges in life that can impact their mental health. The good news is there are practical tools that everyone can use to improve their mental health and increase resiliency - and there are ways that everyone can be supportive of friends, family, and co-workers who are struggling with life’s challenges or with their own mental health.

This May is Mental Health Month and Moses Taylor Foundation has partnered with Lackawanna County and the Lackawanna County System of Care, Scranton Area Community Foundation and its Center for Community Leadership and Nonprofit Excellent, and the United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne Counties to offer a series of webinars highlighting what you can do daily to prioritize your mental health, build resiliency in the face of trauma and obstacles, and support those around you who may be struggling.

Webinars to Watch

May 15, 2020
SELF-CARE, LOSS, AND GRIEF DURING A GLOBAL PANDEMIC
During this Zoom based interactive session, Sue Badeau, nationally known speaker, writer and consultant, will help participants to understand, express and cope with their own emotions, create a self-care plan to develop resilience in the face of uncertainty and use reflective and hope-filled tools to reach out to and care for others in the midst of circumstances that change daily.
Watch recorded webinar

May 21, 2020
WORK/LIFE BALANCE TIPS FOR NONPROFIT LEADERS DURING A TIME OF SOCIAL DISTANCING
Join Beth Kanter (www.bethkanter.org), nonprofit thought leader, virtual facilitator, and author of the Happy Healthy Nonprofit, for an interactive session on how to build your personal resilience and calm during a time of high anxiety. She will facilitate an engaging session on Zoom while sharing tips to help you maintain work/life balance during this difficult time and help you succeed in post-COVID world.
Watch recorded webinar
Resource share: Work/Life Balance Tips for Nonprofit Leaders During A Time of Social Distancing

May 28, 2020
HOW YOUR NONPROFIT CAN ACTIVATE A RESILIENT VIRTUAL WORKPLACE CULTURE
You finally got the hang of working in your pajamas while establishing a productive work routine. Now it is time to focus on your team’s workplace culture when your couch is the water cooler. How do you encourage employee engagement, trust, and balance in the face of extreme uncertainty? Join Beth Kanter for a second webinar and learn the best practices for effective collaboration & communication that will boost your team’s morale and resilience.

Watch recorded webinar
Resource share: How Your Nonprofit Can Activate a Resilient Virtual Workplace Culture

May 29, 2020
SUICIDE AWARENESS AND PREVENTION IN THE WORKPLACE
You think someone on your team may be struggling – but what do you do? As a public speaker, Joe Hopfer’s focus on suicide awareness and prevention stems from his inspiring story as a survivor of loss, losing his 15-year-old son, James, who took his own life in 2010. Join Joe as he discusses signs a person might be suicidal; what to do if you suspect someone at work is thinking about hurting themselves; how to approach, talk with, and support someone who may be suicidal; and how to cope if a coworker or one of their family members takes their own life.

Watch recorded webinar
Resource share:
-Comprehensive Blueprint for Workplace Suicide Prevention
-A Manager’s Guide to Suicide Postvention in the Workplace: 10 Action Steps for Dealing with the Aftermath of Suicide

Thank You to Our Partners in Community Wellness

While 1 in 5 people will experience a mental illness during their lifetime, everyone faces challenges in life that can impact their mental health. The good news is there are practical tools that everyone can use to improve their mental health and increase resiliency - and there are ways that everyone can be supportive of friends, family, and co-workers who are struggling with life’s challenges or with their own mental health.

This May is Mental Health Month and Moses Taylor Foundation has partnered with Lackawanna County and the Lackawanna County System of Care, Scranton Area Community Foundation to bring an awareness campaign to social media. Be sure to follow us on Facebook throughout May for facts and tips regarding mental health.

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Thank You to Our Partners in Community Wellness

Grantee:

Northeast Regional Cancer Institute

Grant awarded:

$4,500 for an Evaluation of the Community-Based Cancer Screening Navigation Program

If you ask Mary Wetherall, RN, MSN, HN-BC, CEO of NEPA Community Health Care, what her organization’s most immediate need is, “space” might be on the top of her list. That’s because the number of patients seen at NEPA Community Health Care has been growing. The Andrew C. Mazza Memorial Health Center, located in Greenfield Township, PA, is only one year old and NEPA Community Health Care has begun its second phase build out, which includes three additional medical exam rooms, two behavioral health offices, a nurse’s station, triage room, and three dental exam spaces. Wetherall says that they hope that, when complete, their new space will become a “one-stop shop” for individuals in the community to receive health care.

One reason expanding this facility remains important is because it offers the nearby rural community access to – not only primary care – but also behavioral health services as well as dental and oral health care. Wetherall explained that the organization’s approach to “whole-person care,” as she likes to call it, is a health care model that will benefit individuals in the community.

“Because we are rural and remote and there is not much public transportation, our patients do not have access to care,” she said. “Our own data show that there is an overuse of emergency rooms as primary care providers.”

Wetherall says that the new renovations have also been critical to patient privacy.

“Our patients responded to that immediately,” she said. “Our patients felt that their information was more secure. It shows that the patient is primary in everything that we do, and that we truly care about them.”

Though the new expansion is not yet complete, Wetherall said that her organization has already learned some key takeaways throughout the renovation process.

“One thing we learned is the importance of planning and budgeting,” she said. “If something doesn’t work out, we ask ourselves: How can you repurpose space? How can you repurpose staff? How can you become more efficient?”

These are questions Wetherall and the rest of NEPA Community Health Care will continue to ask themselves as they continue their mission to bring healthcare services to Greenfield Township. Finally, because NEPA Community Health Care is a Federally Qualified Health Center, it has been given resources to serve each patient regardless of an individual’s insurance or lack of insurance – a point Wetherall emphasizes.

“It’s a medical home regardless of where you fall on the income scale,” she said.

With its new renovations underway, NEPA Community Care will have an improved ability to meet the needs of its patients in an even better way.

This grantee highlight was featured in the Winter newsletter.

Dear Friends, We hope you and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy during these challenging times. Thank you for joining last week's Emergency Planning for Nonprofits webinar. At the bottom of this post, you'll find links to the hand-outs, slide presentation and recording. While our team is keeping abreast of the unfolding crisis and continuing to identify opportunities to support our nonprofit partners, we welcome your suggestions. We hope you'll stay in touch and keep us abreast of new needs as they arise. As we've listened to our nonprofit partners, we are making several immediate changes to our responsive grantmaking in response to your feedback: EXPEDITING REQUESTS FOR EMERGENCY SUPPORT All current and past grantees are eligible to receive support for emergency needs. These grant requests will be considered on a rolling basis regardless of size and expedited without a full proposal. PROVIDING FLEXIBILITY IN RE-PURPOSING ACTIVE GRANTS If you have an active grant with the Foundation for a specific program, you can modify how you use these funds to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are not defining what it means to use the funds to respond to COVID-19 and trust you to make that determination for your organization. ASSUMING RESPONSIBILITY FOR 2020 PROGRESS AND FINAL REPORTS In moments of crisis we know time is precious and therefore want to do our part to remove distractions from the important work you do. At a later date, we will call you to receive a brief update on your work and submit a report on your behalf. If you have any questions regarding how these changes impact your organization, please email Jeff Smith. Our staff is working remotely until further notice in response to public health recommendations, but aims to respond to all inquiries as quickly as possible. Thank you for all you do on behalf of families in Northeastern Pennsylvania. LaTida Smith President and CEO Moses Taylor Foundation

Emergency Planning for Nonprofits Webinar: Materials

• PowerPoint Slides
• Plan Instructions
• Plan Template

Dear Friends, We hope you are staying safe and well during this difficult time. While we know that for many of you, like us, responding to the evolving COVID-19 situation has temporarily overtaken other priorities, we did want to send out a brief note to update you on our ongoing commitment to supporting school nurses.  As many of you know, Moses Taylor Foundation contracted with the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) over the past several months to conduct a needs assessment of school nurses in our region. Our deepest thanks go out to all school nurses and administrators who participated in this work through completion of the online survey, attendance at in-person brainstorming sessions, and/or through one-on-one interviews. The active phase of the assessment was completed by NASN in early March. Once the urgency around COVID-19 passes, the Foundation will resume this work by taking time to examine the results of the assessment, solicit additional feedback from key stakeholders, develop a corresponding strategy, and potentially further research some of the findings. After that work is completed, we plan to share a report with the community that we believe will present exciting opportunities for community education, advocacy, and funding to support school nurses. We will also resume plans to produce a video highlighting the role of the modern school nurse—something that preliminary results of the assessment indicated was greatly misunderstood. While we have had to adjust our timeline for this work, please know that we look forward to resuming it and remain enthusiastic about its potential. We will continue to update our website with further details as they become available, or feel free to reach out directly to me with any questions. Thank you again for your participation and all you do to safeguard and improve the health of children in our community. Christine Marcos Moses Taylor Foundation 570-207-3731 ext. 304 cmarcos@mosestaylorfoundation.org

A year ago we launched our first strategic plan—formed from months of discussions with many of you on opportunities to improve the health of people in NEPA.

Some parts of our plan have progressed faster than anticipated. Scranton Area Community Foundation’s inaugural NEPA Learning Conference sparked great new energy around nonprofit capacity building! An exciting new partnership with the National Association of School Nurses is providing the blueprint for investment across our 11 county region.

As we move forward, we are working to stay in active dialogue with you. We updated our website to reflect our new strategies and hope it will provide an ongoing resource. With today's release, we are launching e-newsletters to provide timely updates and describe how we’re working with partners to advance our strategies. 

Other parts of our plan have required more development and planning. We are just beginning our work with local partners to address older adult isolation in Lackawanna County. We slowed down our school-based health center planning to reevaluate need and capacity. And we continue to experiment with ways of aligning our responsive grantmaking with the region’s most pressing community health needs.

And we always value connecting one-on-one to share what we’re up to and explore newopportunities for collaboration. 
Thank you for your continued interest and commitment to working together. Your input and engagement have brought us thus far and are the best path forward.