Growing Up Healthy

Growing Up Healthy: Kids and Communities (Growing Up Healthy) is a statewide grantmaking initiative of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation launched in 2006 to improve the health of Minnesota’s children through a focus on social and environmental determinants of health. The goal and focus of this initiative is on building strong and connected communities to maximize the healthy development of children, from pre-birth to age five, by working at the intersection of public health and:

• Early childhood care and learning
• Safe, healthy, affordable housing and neighborhoods
• Physical environment (including the built and natural environments in which children develop)
• Knowing that healthy diets and adequate physical activity improve the health of pregnant women and children birth to 5 years, the foundation is also expanding Growing Up Healthy in support of Blue Cross and State of Minnesota goals to increase access to healthy, affordable food and make communities more walkable and bikeable.

Growing Up Healthy is designed to help communities work across sectors through policy and systems change to create an environment that nurtures the healthy growth and development of children by supporting place-based collaborations that: 

• Engage health, child development, housing, and environmental sectors with the government, business and the broader community to identify and address conditions that affect the health of young children (pre-birth to age five)
• Encompass broad geographic areas for greater reach and impact defined as county, region, and/or reservation in Greater Minnesota and city and/or suburban communities or counties in the Twin Cities metropolitan region
• Engage both grass roots, particularly the inclusion of people who are hard to reach and/or are affected by poor health outcomes, and “grass tops” in creating a vision for a community that nurtures healthy children, and in implementing an action plan
• Foster policies, systems, norms and practices that create health-promoting community conditions — rather than focus on individual health behaviors
• Adopt approaches that reflect the cultural, environmental and social context of the community
  Work in communities with significant social, economic and environmental challenges to improve community conditions for children of color and those with low income

A healthy start for all children

Research shows that early childhood development (pre-birth through age five) is a health determinant that sets the stage for a healthy, productive adulthood. High quality early learning experiences lead to better school performance, better social skills, lower juvenile crime and smoking rates, and higher earning potential as adults. Secure attachments in early childhood create the foundation for a secure base in later life, improving resilience, social competence and confidence.

Healthy environments

Young children need a healthy social and physical environment for positive development. Their rapid growth and smaller size make them more vulnerable to environmental threats. Their normal behavior patterns place them at even greater risk from some toxins. Research also shows that many adult diseases actually originate in the fetal environment.Scientific evidence increasingly indicates a relationship between a range of environmental factors and a variety of diseases and conditions such as asthma, autism, birth defects, some cancers, developmental disabilities, diabetes and others.

Safe, healthy and affordable housing and neighborhoods

Safe, healthy and affordable housing is critical for children to grow up healthy. Safe housing helps protect children from many health conditions, including asthma, anemia, lead poisoning, mold allergies and respiratory infections. It also means being safe from injury and violence. Affordable housing promotes stability. Children in stable housing situations are less likely to change schools frequently, perform better in school and have better prospects for educational achievement later in life.

Healthy eating/active living

A new component of Growing Up Healthy Phase II incorporates work in the policy environment and the built environment in Minnesota counties, municipalities and neighborhoods to increase organizational and community capacity, readiness and advocacy for environments that help make accessing healthy food and physical activity a routine part of daily life for young children and their families.

Funding guidelines

We expect to award five to eight planning grants for Phase II.  Grant awards will be announced at the end of August 2010.

One-year planning grants of up to $25,000 will support the development of an action plan to identify and improve key policies and community conditions that affect the health of young children, birth to age five and the birth outcomes of pregnant women. Through the planning process, the lead agency and its partners, working with community members, will develop a shared vision of a healthy community that nurtures the development and growth of young children.

Collaborative leadership development

To make progress on addressing the root causes of health inequities, we need “change leaders” who can work collaboratively across sectors to influence the social, economic and environmental determinants of health. Building leadership capacity is a key strategy for Phase II of Growing Up Healthy. During the one year planning process, grantees will participate in a collaborative leadership development program. The program begins in Fall 2010 with a one-day orientation by foundation staff and each grantee partnership. Subsequently, grantees will each select a three- to five-member cohort to take part in a series of three, two-day residential workshops over the next 10 months.

The goal of the Collaborative Leadership Program is to build a base of community leaders who can support, guide and accelerate the process of creating healthier communities.

We believe that improving the health of Minnesota’s communities will require the collective efforts of many — community members along with nonprofit, government and business sectors, working together to ensure that all our children grow up healthy.