Download the one-page pdf flyer with details about the Sequoia Healthcare District/Sequoia Hospital Live Well Workshop for managing chronic disease starting March 1. Registration is limited.

Live Well Workshop — Manage Chronic Disease  Flyer

Download pdf of Feb. 1, 2012 Board Meeting Agenda and Materials

Caring Community Grants

2012-13 Grant Cycle

Description and Preliminary Schedule

•Open to 501(c)3 nonprofits serving residents of the Sequoia Healthcare District

•Nonprofits may apply for up to three grants with a maximum of $250,000 total grants per organization per grant cycle.

•Administrative overhead must not consume more than 15 percent of grant award (85 percent for program services).

•Organizations may collaborate to submit one grant.

•Non-discrimination statement required as part of grant contract.

•When a nonprofit applies for a renewal grant the following process will be used: Mid-term report due at six months, in-person staff evaluation at nine months required to assure that program is on target to make goals.

•Preference given to grants that have other funders (district objective is to fund no more than 66 percent of program budget).

•Grantee should indicate the impact of reduced funding should district choose not to fund full request.

•Should grantee purchase outside evaluation of program impact, cost must be borne by organization or must be apportioned as part of 15 percent allowable overhead.

TIMELINE

Feb. 10, 2012 and Feb. 13, 2012 — Informational meetings held from 9 a.m. to noon at district headquarters, 525 Veterans Blvd., Redwood City

March, 2012 — Submittal of Letters of Intent by grant requestors

April, 2012 — District visits agencies

May, 2012 — District Grants Committee recommends grants to District Board of Directors for action

June, 2012 — 2012–13 Caring Community grantees approved by the board

Agenda

Dowload pdf of agenda and materials:

Sequoia Healthcare District Agenda and Materials, Dec. 7, 2011

2011_10_05_Meeting_Agenda

Special Meeeting Board Agenda 9-27-11 (Downloadable pdf)

Board Meeting Agenda 8-23-11

Sequoia HCD Board Agenda Aug. 3 2011

July 22, 2011

Jennifer Gabet

Nutrition Manager

Healthy Schools Initiative

Pamela Kurtman

Director

Healthy Schools Initiative

Glenn Nielsen

Director

HeartSafe Program

Nutritionist Jennifer Gabet, MPH, RD Joins Sequoia Healthcare District Healthy Schools Team

REDWOOD CITY, July 22, 2011 — Jennifer Gabet, formerly nutrition program manager with University of California Cooperative Extension, has joined Sequoia Healthcare District staff as Nutrition Manager for the Healthy Schools Initiative (HSI), an innovative, $6.3 million, three-year commitment by the district to fund school nursing and wellness programs in eight area public school districts.

This addition rounds out a year of change in district staffing during which former HeartSafe program manager Pamela Kurtzman moved to become Healthy Schools Initiative Director and former Atherton Chief of Police Glenn Nielsen joined the staff to take over the HeartSafe program.

Staff moves still keep district administrative overhead at less than 5 percent of annual spending. All told, Sequoia Healthcare District returns more than $10 million to the district in programs on $7.95 million in property tax revenue, or approximately $1.30 in programs for every dollar of property tax revenue. A revenue-sharing agreement with Catholic Healthcare West, which owns and operates Sequoia Hospital, and return on investments make up the balance.

Gabet, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in integrative biology, has extensive experience as a health educator, wellness program coordinator and nutrition program manager. She was clinical dietitian at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, Health Education Program advisor at Santa Barbara City College and Wellness Program coordinator for the City of Missoula, Montana before returning to California and UC Cooperative Extension in 2007. Gabet earned her Master of Public Health degree and her Bachelor of Science degree in nutrition and clinical dietetics at UC Berkeley and is a licensed registered dietitian.

At Sequoia Healthcare District she will participate in the first collaboration between a public healthcare district and public school districts to implement the federal Centers for Disease Control’s Coordinated School Health model.

A few very large public school districts in the state have implemented this program, but the participating smaller San Francisco Peninsula destricts within the Sequoia Healthcare District have been beset by state budget reductions and most have all but eliminated school nurses and health and fitness programs such as physical education.

Healthy School Initiative programs directly affect more than 25,000 public school students in the Belmont-Redwood Shores, Las Lomitas, Menlo Park, Portola Valley, Redwood City, San Carlos and Woodside school districts, the Sequoia Union High School District and Charter Learning Center in San Carlos.

Gabet will coordinate nutrition and wellness programs with the districts and with several nonprofit organizations that have been granted funding to participate in public school gardens.

According to Healthy Schools Initiative Program Director Kurtzman, school gardens are critical platforms for nutrition education.

“From gardens you can learn math, science, nutrition, sustainability and other skills critical to wellness,” she said. “Children in the schools will be made more aware of what they are eatding and will be more interested in the concept of health and wellness.”

Sequoia Healthcare District directors authorized the second year of the initiative at their meeting June 6, reflecting approval of the first year’s experience and confidence in its evolution through the year ahead.

Gabet’s assignment will be to help the funded agencies develop strategies based on their first year’s experiences. They will be tasked with developing new structures and unifying approaches future participants may build upon.

“I am very optimistic about this approach and Jennifer’s abilities,” Kurtzman said. “She is well respected in the school communities where she has worked. She has a positive approach and a well-rounded philosophy focused on inspiring school systems and public school students to make healthy choices — it’s part of her personality makeup and her personality is infectious.”

Sequoia Healthcare District provides major funding to numerous non-profit community health organizations that directly assist more 35,000 women, children and seniors in the district, which includes the cities of Atherton, Belmont, Menlo Park, Portola Valley, Redwood City, San Carlos, Woodside, and portions of San Mateo and Foster City from Skyline Boulevard to the Bay.

STAFF BIOGRAPHIES

PAMELA KURTZMAN, MPH

Pamela Kurtzman has a master’s degree in public health and previously worked at Stanford Center for Disease Prevention in heart disease research and as an Exercise Physiologist for the Living Strong, Living Well Program for cancer patients and survivors. She earned a B.S. degree in Exercise Science and pre-med at Arizona State University and a master’s degree in public health from the State University of New York and Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

She came to Sequoia Healthcare District in August, 2006 to direct the district’s HeartSafe program, which finances placement of automated external defibrillators in schools, community centers, city facilities, recreation areas, senior citizens’ centers and numerous locations throughout Sequoia Healthcare District.

She was named Director of the district’s Healthy Schools Initiative in July of 2010 and has coordinated the efforts  of numerous government and schools agencies as they innovate programs implementing the Center for Disease Control’s Coordinated School Health Model.

GLENN NIELSEN

A native of Redwood City born at Sequoia Hospital, Glenn Nielsen began his first professional career as a Town of Atherton police cadet in 1975 and rose through the ranks to become the town’s Chief of Police. In that role he became the first chief on the Peninsula to deploy Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) in police cruisers, among other accomplishments. In his second professional career, as director of Sequoia Healthcare District’s HeartSafe program, which he assumed in 2009 upon his retirement from the chief’s job, he was responsible for deploying numerous AEDs in schools, recreation centers, churches and other public places throughout the district. He holds a B.S. degree from Menlo College and is a graduate of the state Police Officers Standards and Training’s prestigious Command College.

JENNIFER GABET, MPH, RD

Jennifer Gabet, an accomplished academician and an experienced educator in the public sector, was a graduate student instructor in the Nutritional Sciences Department, a health educator in the university’s Health Promotion Unit and ultimately commencement speaker for her college at the University of California, Berkeley. She obtained three degrees at the university, B.A. in Integrative Biology, B.S. in Nutrition and Clinical Dietetics and M.P.H. from the Graduate School of Public Health.

In the university environment she taught courses in nutritional and food sciences, lectured on nutrition, exercise and eating disorders and counseled her peers in a number of wellness programs.

In the public sector she screened and helped provide for nutritional needs of patients in a Santa Barbara community hospital and managed developed and monitored wellness programs in Missoula, Montana. At UC Cooperative Extension she planned and administered USDA-funded nutrition education programs for youth and families and directed various programs and program staff.

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