In February, Verdant hosted three community partner conversations with partners to talk about our new 2025-2028 Strategic Plan and create a space for partners to share community needs. It was extremely valuable to hear a diverse group of partners talk about the current challenges they are seeing, and highlight programs that are succeeding. A number of common trends emerged across the conservations, and we thought it would be helpful to share a short summary.     

It’s a challenging environment right now 

The community is asking our partners for help with basic needs every day for things like food, housing support, healthcare and employment. Those needs are intensifying with rising costs and a difficult job market. Its particularly hard on the immigrant population who are feeling fear, anxiety and isolation over being targeted.     

There are many different barriers to accessing healthcare 

Partners shared the variety of barriers they see the community struggle with when it comes to accessing healthcare services. From long waits for appointments, transportation, overall affordability, health literacy, technology barriers, flawed intake and discharge processes, lack of multi-lingual services, and complex cases involving mental health issues, substance abuse or housing instability.  

Child, Adolescent and Young Adult Mental Health 

Child, Adolescent and Young Adult Mental Health is one of Verdant’s stated priorities in its 2025-2028 plan along with Access to Direct Healthcare services. Partners shared that mental health needs are growing rapidly among youth, and that it is difficult to provide enough therapists and other staff to meet that need. The reality is likely that the need is even greater than what we see because there is still a large stigma among youth to ask for help with mental health, and there are not enough options for youth with disabilities, special needs or cultural needs.       

What’s working today – Bringing healthcare to where people are and building relationships 

When the discussion shifted to what is working today, we heard many examples of successful programs that shared the common approach of bringing services directly to people to make them easier to access and building trusted relationships that are invaluable in order to engage the community. A few of the examples were programs such as mobile health and dental, family nurse partnerships, EMS home visits, using health and food programs to engage isolated seniors, utilizing community health workers, pairing mentorship and access to therapy, school-based access to healthcare and mental health services, and building long-term relationships through culturally relevant programs.       

We wrapped up the conversations feeling appreciative to work with our partners who serve South Snohomish County in amazing ways, and knowing that there’s more work to be done. Every time partners get together, it sparks discussions around new opportunities to collaborate, refer clients, or coordinate resources more efficiently. We will continue the conversation on March 19th at the next Verdant Partner Roundtable and hope you can join us. Read on for more details in this newsletter.                 

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