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Aligning Health Care and Social Services: A Primer on Social Services
Brief

Aligning Health Care and Social Services: A Primer on Social Services

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This primer describes the rich history of the social services sector, where the sector stands today, opportunities for alignment with health care, and the strengths and challenges of increasing engagement between the health care and human services sectors.

In the United States, social services organizations provide a variety of services to individuals, especially the most vulnerable, including housing, nutrition support, life skills development, and disaster recovery. Despite significant growth in recent years, the social services sector faces an uncertain future. Strategic adaptations that address these trends are already underway and reinforce the need for alignment of the social services sector with health care and public health.

The primer is based on research compiled for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation by Jean Flatley McGuire, PhD, a nationally known researcher at Northeastern University.

Webinar

Aligning in Crisis: Strategies and Tools to Leverage Federal Funding

On 9/14, experts from Aligning in Crisis, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, will discussed how, if deployed strategically and effectively, federal funds can advance equity, shift power to the community, and set the stage for positive, long-term change.

Brief

Intermediary Organizations Are Urgently Needed to Assist in Modernizing Public Health and Addressing the Drivers of Health in the United States

This issue brief describes the different roles intermediaries can play; provides examples of where they have been used in practice; and identifies the risks, benefits, and possible innovations of intermediaries as well as policy approaches that might facilitate their appropriate use.

Publication

Revising the Foundational Public Health Services in 2022

This publication provides a framework outlining the unique responsibilities of governmental public health and can be used to explain the vital role of governmental public health in a thriving community; identify capacity and resource gaps; determine the cost for assuring foundational activities; and justify funding needs