Health Net of West Michigan’s new Care Model Training provides frontline navigators with tools and tactics to better help residents access health care and social services.

According to the Michigan Association of United Ways’ 2024 ALICE Report, 1.6 million of Michigan’s 4 million households struggle to pay for basic needs like housing, child care, food, transportation, and health care, despite being employed. In Kent County, those households are concentrated in urban locations like Grand Rapids, Wyoming, and Kentwood, as well as the more rural city of Lowell and several smaller townships. Health Net of West Michigan is working to serve those community members better through its new Care Model Training, which provides frontline navigators with tools and tactics to better help residents access health care and social services.
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Over the past nine years, Health Net of West Michigan has been a crucial link to health care and social services, prioritizing low-income individuals. Through case management, system navigation, transportation and outreach, the organization collaborates closely with local partners to enhance community health and wellness, ensuring access to essential resources for healthier lives.

Health Net started in 2014 as a merger between two nonprofit programs and organizations. Almost immediately, the lack of diversity became apparent. White male executives from various local health and mental health systems dominated the board, with staff also primarily identifying as white. The new organization conducted a standard equity assessment and quickly identified the need for a way to talk about health equity. But they recognized that individual analyses of historical power and social structures could only get them so far. With the organization just barely starting out, it seemed like racial equity would have to take a back seat.

Still, the equity team refused to slow down. In 2018, the team released an “equity strategic plan,” calling for Health Net to name specific goals for weaving principles of equity and inclusion throughout all aspects of the organization.

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An evolution of Community Health Innovation Regions (CHIRs) established in 2015 as part of Michigan’s State Innovation Model, Regional Health Collaboratives are a model for improving a region’s wellbeing and unnecessary medical costs through collaboration and systems change.

Michigan’s six Collaboratives include Greater Flint Health Coalition in Genesee County, Jackson Collaborative Network in Jackson County, Health Net of West Michigan in Kent County, MI Community Care (MiCC) in Livingston and Washtenaw counties, Access Health, Inc. in Muskegon County, and Southeastern Michigan Health Association, which operates in seven southeastern Michigan counties and metro Detroit.

One of the Collaboratives’ shared goals has been to improve access to behavioral health services. Read more

KENT COUNTY, MI – Family Futures, a nonprofit that works to support new parents, is partnering with 18 Kent County organizations to provide an online survey to help connect more families to parenting resources.

The Kent County Parenting Support Site is a website that connects families to home-visiting resources, allowing them to further their children’s health, development and school readiness, the news release said.

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Doug Booth, 34

COO

Health Net of West Michigan

Doug Booth likes to be involved. He likes to get others involved, too.

“My biggest influence is the child that I once was. I grew up a closeted gay boy in West Michigan. Everything I do, I think back to then and ask if I would feel safe with me now? I was scared and unsure of what life had in store for me. I think back to then because I know there are still kids in our area that may feel the same way now that I did then. That’s unacceptable for me, so I will always try and help and stay visible for the LGBTQ kids in our communities.”

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