New Tools to Promote Immigrant Integration and Health

EAGAN, Minn. (March 6, 2008) — The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation has released a 30-minute program and DVD "Shared Values: Health and Community — Shaping Minnesota’s Future with New Americans," featuring the exciting community building work of nonprofits in Minnesota. The program explores how individuals and communities become more interconnected and healthier when there are strong social support networks and opportunities for people to work and bond together. The DVD and discussion guide are available at no charge.

"How well both immigrants and receiving communities are able to draw on their strengths and overcome the challenges will affect the health and vitality of the state, now and into the future," says Joan Cleary, vice president of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation. "This program offers strategies for individuals and organizations to reach across cultures and build healthier, inclusive communities."

The Foundation also announces the release of a report that shares emerging lessons, tools and approaches for mental health education, assessment and treatment for immigrant populations. The report summarizes the discussions of representatives from 18 grantee organizations who came together in 2008 to share strategies they have used in providing mental health services for immigrants and refugees, issues they have encountered in operating their own programs and lessons learned along the way. Some promising strategies include:

• Helping new immigrants forge social connections and rebuild the sense of community they may have lost by connecting them to others facing similar issues and creating social gathering
• Providing information and education and pursue other means to "normalize" and remove stigma and misconceptions from mental health issues and treatment
• Building on client's strengths, helping them to reframe their experiences as survivors rather than as victims and to create their own solutions
• Recognizing mind/body connections and focusing on symptoms
  

The DVD, discussion guide and report were created as part of the Foundation’s statewide grantmaking initiative Healthy Together: Creating Community with New Americans. The initiative is designed to reduce health disparities for immigrants and improve the health of the entire community.

Media contact:
Julie Lee
Program Communications Consultant
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation
(651) 662-6574 

The Blue Cross Foundation’s purpose is to look beyond health care today for ideas that create healthier communities tomorrow. By addressing key social, economic and environmental factors that determine health — beyond genes, lifestyle and access to health care — the foundation’s work extends beyond the traditional reach of the health care system to improve community health long-term and close the health gap that affects many Minnesotans. The foundation has become the state’s largest grantmaking foundation to exclusively dedicate its assets to improving health in Minnesota, awarding more than $25 million since it was established in 1986.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, with headquarters in the St. Paul suburb of Eagan, was chartered in 1933 as Minnesota’s first health plan and continues to carry out its charter mission today: to promote a wider, more economical and timely availability of health services for the people of Minnesota. A nonprofit, taxable organization, Blue Cross is the largest health plan based in Minnesota, covering 2.8 million members in Minnesota and nationally through its health plans or plans administered by its affiliated companies. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, headquartered in Chicago. Go to bluecrossmn.com to learn more about Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota.