BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina Foundation Awards 13 Grants to South Carolina Organizations
The BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina Foundation awarded 13 grants in the spring of 2020 to organizations working to improve the health of South Carolina’s economically vulnerable citizens. Eight of the grants awarded are Health Priority Grants and five support the Diabetes Free SC initiative.
Health Priority Grants
Beaufort Jasper Hampton Comprehensive Health Services — Expand access to school-based oral health services in Jasper and Hampton counties through participation in the School-Based Oral Health Expansion Initiative (2 years - Hampton and Jasper)
East Cooper Community Outreach — Replace essential dental equipment, including new chairs, x-ray machines and computers with upgraded Dentrix software in North Charleston clinic (1 year – Berkeley and Charleston)
Healthy Learners — Provide district-wide health screenings for students in five school districts and coordinate services based on needs identified, as well as provide Youth and Teen Mental Health First Aid trainings to the school districts (3 years — Bamberg, Barnwell, Hampton, Marion, and Williamsburg)
Mental Health America of Greenville County – Increase the capabilities and functionality of the call management system to serve the South Carolina arm of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and the South Carolina Department of Mental Health’s Community Crisis Response and Intervention (CCRI) program (1 year — Statewide)
Our Lady of Mercy Community Outreach Services, Inc. — Establish a dental clinic in downtown Charleston to provide comprehensive dental care to uninsured patients (3 years – Charleston)
SC Department of Mental Health — Support the development of the nation’s first community-centered Zero Suicide framework, in order to decrease the rate of suicide by sharing effective strategies designed to raise awareness of suicide, establish a referral process, improve care and outcomes for individuals at risk for suicide (1 year — Statewide)
SC First Steps to School Readiness Board of Trustees — Support implementation of PASO’s Connections for Child Development program, using Community Health Workers to conduct developmental and social-emotional screenings and connect families to needed resources (1 year — Beaufort, Charleston, Lexington and Saluda).
University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health CARE — Build upon the previous work by the Core for Applied Research and Evaluation (CARE) and HealthBegins to develop a refined and comprehensive statewide approach to address the social determinants of health and establish a learning collaborative to start addressing social needs in at least five communities (1 year — statewide).
Diabetes Free SC
Alliance for a Healthier Generation — To expand the Healthy Schools Program to twenty additional districts across South Carolina in order to create and sustain healthier school environments through a framework of best practices and a continuous improvement process for implementation (3 years).
Prisma Health Midlands — To form a joint obstetric-endocrine prenatal clinic at Carolina Diabetes and Kidney Center (CDKC) to improve health outcomes and ease the burden on pregnant women with diabetes living in Sumter. Telemedicine will extend the reach of this program to additional communities, including Clarendon and Richland (3 years — Clarendon, Richland, & Sumter)
Prisma Health Upstate — To expand the services of the Pregnancy Diabetes Clinic by increasing support of onsite endocrinology services, allowing the clinic to transition into a fully integrated joint obstetric-endocrine prenatal clinic model. Reach of clinic will expand to additional communities through use of telemedicine (3 years — Anderson, Greenville, Laurens, Oconee and Pickens).
The Medical University of South Carolina’s Boeing Center for Children’s Wellness — To support the expansion of the “Docs Adopt School Health” program to eight school districts, a school-based prevention and wellness initiative and a list of best practices focused on nutrition, physical activity, employee wellness and social/emotional learning (3 years).
University of South Carolina School of Medicine — To scale FoodShare statewide, increasing fresh food access, fresh fruit and vegetable consumption and providing nutrition and diabetes education to low-income families with the overall aim of reducing the prevalence of diabetes in children and adults (5 years — statewide)