HCA Healthcare Announces HCA Healthcare Foundation’s $1.38 Million Grant to Girl Scouts

By AIT News Desk On May 25, 2022

Funding to help develop, pilot, and launch youth mental wellness workshops

HCA Healthcare, Inc., one of the nation’s leading healthcare providers, announced that the HCA Healthcare Foundation will donate $1.38 million over the next three years to Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) to start work on creating a series of workshops aimed at addressing mental wellness among girls. The curriculum is aimed at helping girls better understand mental wellness and provide them with skills to strengthen their resilience and support their peers.

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“We are honored to continue this partnership with Girl Scouts on a national scale to create a new research-based initiative to help all girls be more resilient and take action to strengthen their own mental health.”

“The HCA Healthcare Foundation has a long history of partnering with Girl Scouts in Middle Tennessee and other communities,” said Joanne Pulles, vice president of community engagement at HCA Healthcare and president of the HCA Healthcare Foundation. “We are honored to continue this partnership with Girl Scouts on a national scale to create a new research-based initiative to help all girls be more resilient and take action to strengthen their own mental health.”

The grant will support Girl Scouts’ Mental Health 101 workshops, comprised of Getting to Know Your Emotions for fourth through fifth graders, Finding Your Voice for sixth through eighth graders, and its Peer Support workshop for ninth through twelfth graders. These workshops, which are under development now and launching the summer of 2023, will be created in collaboration with National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) subject matter experts. Visit www.girlscouts.org/mentalwellness for more information.

“Developed with the understanding that girls are especially impacted by societal pressures and the current youth mental health crisis, these workshops will have a direct impact on the girls we serve and beyond,” said Savita Raj, chief program officer, GSUSA. “Girl Scouts is grateful to HCA Healthcare for their investment in girls’ mental health – an area that needs to be a priority for our country.”

The HCA Healthcare Foundation has a history of supporting Girl Scouts – first in 1998 with the Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee council, which was one of the Foundation’s first class of grants to Middle Tennessee organizations. In 2017, the Foundation was an inaugural supporter of Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee’s Troop 6000, an initiative that serves girls experiencing homelessness and is modeled after similar troops nationwide.

HCA Healthcare is committed to promoting mental wellness for its patients, colleagues, and communities. With approximately 2,300 sites of care, including 182 hospitals, in communities across 20 states, HCA Healthcare uses the knowledge and data from more than 300,000 annual behavioral health patient encounters to make positive advances in the ways it provides care to its patients.

Additionally, during unprecedented mental health challenges for nurses and caregivers around the world, HCA Healthcare is prioritizing and destigmatizing colleague mental health needs through new initiatives, including Nurse Care, a unique, free, and confidential mental health program for the needs of HCA Healthcare hospital-based nurses. The resource is available 24/7 to help nurses manage anxiety, balance their work and life responsibilities, practice self-care, and handle common nursing related issues.

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In communities across the country, HCA Healthcare is responding to the growing need for mental health awareness through partnerships, including:

EVERFI: In 2020, HCA Healthcare announced a collaboration with EVERFI, an international technology company driving social change through education, to implement an interactive, mental health and wellness digital education course for middle and high school students. With HCA Healthcare’s support, the Mental Wellness Basics course has reached more than 120,000 students and 1,300 teachers at 548 schools across all 15 of HCA Healthcare’s U.S. divisions.
The Jason Foundation: In 2013, HCA Healthcare formally partnered with The Jason Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to the prevention of youth suicide through educational and awareness programs that equip young people, educators/youth workers, and parents with the tools and resources to help identify and assist at-risk youth. HCA Healthcare has 13 Jason Foundation affiliate offices across the nation. These offices serve as hubs where parents, teachers, guidance counselors, students, churches, and other community organizations can obtain educational materials and learn about training programs available through The Jason Foundation.
Psych Hub podcast series: This year, HCA Healthcare and Psych Hub, the world’s largest mental health education platform, in collaboration with Columbia University’s Department of Psychiatry, partnered to create a 10-episode podcast series called “You Ask, We Answer” to bring people credible online mental health education.

“As mental health symptoms typically present for the first time during adolescence and early adulthood, it is important to properly educate youth that they are not alone,” said Amy Rushton, vice president of behavioral health services at HCA Healthcare. “These workshops can help normalize talking about mental health, starting at a young age, and give participants tools and language to be advocates for their own mental wellness as well as for their peers.”

The grant to Girl Scouts is funded through the Healthier Tomorrow Fund, an $80 million community impact fund designed to support innovative initiatives focused on addressing high priority community needs and health equity. Since its inception in 2021, the Healthier Tomorrow Fund has committed $4.5 million in grants to 13 organizations.

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