The Center For Community Solutions

Causes: Civil Rights, Community & Neighborhood Development, Economic Development, Human Services

Mission: The center for community solutions (the organization) is a not-for-profit organization that provides various support services to individuals and organizations throughout the northeast ohio area. The organization provides strategic leadership to improve targeted health, social, and economic conditions. The organization's major sources of revenues are government contracts, grants from foundations, and contributions.

Programs: See schedule ocore competencies include applied research, public policy analysis and advocacy, and communications. In 2017, major activities by work area included:- regularly monitored and wrote in detail about the development and eventual enactment of the 2018-2019 state budget. - regularly monitored and wrote about the activities of the cuyahoga county council health, human services and aging committee. - hosted the first medicaid institute, a two-day training for health and human service advocates on the state of ohio's medicaid budget. - created first-ever statewide legislative district profiles, providing demographic profiles that will be of use to legislators, advocates, providers, and others. - released the age-friendly columbus report in columbus, and provided updates to the age-friendly cities at cleveland city hall. - conducted multiple community surveys on topics such as services for rape survivors and housing issues faced by people living with hiv, and conducted needs assessments as contracted. - issued reports on proposed federal and state changes to medicaid, tanf, food insecurity among older adults, maternal and infant health, substance use prevention, the effects of the american health care act on county economies, adult protective services, and funding for developmental disabilities services. - regularly contributed op-eds to local media, including articles on comprehensive sex education, housing, infant mortality, raising awareness about effective hiv prevention, and senior hunger. - assisted in creation of cuyahoga county's health and human services strategic plan. - initiated the human services advocates network (hsan), a diverse network of citizens and representatives from across the health and human service spectrum, to hear the latest on statewide policy developments and discuss issues important to northeast ohioans. - conducted advocacy in motion, a series of advocacy trainings for health and social services. - continued to provide staff support to the council on older persons (coop), to promote a better understanding of aging and address the issues and concerns of older persons in greater cleveland through citizen-led needs assessment, policy development, community education and advocacy. Coop's members include leaders in the aging network who come together to develop strategies, lead advocacy efforts, and implement solutions. The organization has housed coop since the 1940s.

see schedule othe health team launched larc (long-acting reversible contraception) access ohio with partners from nationwide children's hospital and cradle cincinnati. The collaborative provides technical assistance and learning opportunities for new programs in ohio that aim to reduce unintended pregnancy and teen births. Through the aids funding collaborative, staff promoted pre-exposure prophylaxis (prep) for hiv prevention in cuyahoga county, advocated for expanded syringe access, and allocated over $400,000 in grants to support hiv/aids prevention and capacity building needs in cuyahoga county. The team also successfully coordinated efforts of the youth leadership council and the collaborative for comprehensive school aged health, which became a national pilot site for foundations skills trainings for youth-serving organizations.