On November 19, 2022, SCF hosted its third annual healthcare symposium for the community, entitled “Toward Health Equity in Skokie: An Introduction to Collective Impact,” in partnership with the Village of Skokie Health and Human Services Department and the Skokie Public Library.

Click below to watch the 2022 symposium.

Collective Impact is defined as a network of community members, organizations and stakeholders coming together to advance equity by aligning and coordinating their acts to achieve both improved outcomes for the population and systemic level change. The 2022 SCF Healthcare Symposium served as the foundation for future health-related initiatives in Skokie, bringing local organizations and community partners together to begin collaborating on projects that will quantifiably impact the health of Skokie residents.
More than 40 Skokie residents, community partners, and Skokie leaders met to analyze data and identify key opportunities to improve health equity in Skokie. Paul Schmitz, Senior Advisor at The Collective Impact Forum gave a presentation and led several breakout discussions and activities.

Sources for data reviewed at the symposium included the US 2020 Census, the Illinois Department of Public Health, the 2022 Skokie Community Health Survey and Key Health Indicators from NorthShore University Health System.  Substantive areas reviewed included Skokie resident educational attainment differences based on race, ethnicity, and foreign-born status; health concerns by age; percentage of household income spent on housing costs; food access analysis by census tracts; mental health distress by census tracts; frequency of emergency medical response to mental health issues by age; and mortality data.

The data-based community discussions that took place at the 2022 symposium identified three key priorities for the participating Skokie partners and agencies to focus on, using the Collective Impact model:

  • Improving access to healthcare
  • Improving access to behavioral and mental health
  • Increasing affordable housing in Skokie

Next steps include gathering the relevant agencies, providers, consumers, and community groups for each of the identified priorities, collecting sufficient baseline data; identifying possible interventions that might “move the needle” on each issue; and coordinating the participants’ various activities to maximize the collective impact. The Village of Skokie Health and Human Services Department agreed to be the lead agency coordinating the overall implementation of the plans.  SCF will continue to host the Healthcare Symposia, the next several of which will focus on the Collective Impact projects. 

The 2022 Skokie Healthcare Symposium was presented by Skokie Community Foundation in partnership with the Village of Skokie Health & Human Services Department and Skokie Public Library. A special thank you to sponsor NorthShore University HealthSystem.

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