A Year of Relentless Commitment to Equity & Progress

Voices for Healthy Kids believes change starts within the community. Passionate parents, teachers, neighbors, and advocates know best the healthy changes that will improve their communities’ health and lives. 

But for far too long, there has been a disconnect between powerful institutions in the public and non-profit sectors and the lived experiences of the communities they represent. Discriminatory policies, practices, and beliefs perpetuate this power imbalance, undermining community ownership and self-determination.  

This must change. 

Voices for Healthy Kids exists to amplify the needs and solutions of community leaders who are advocating for changes in policy, systems, and environments. Our investments are pointed at and directed to the people who know how to create change and improve health outcomes where they live. We’re coalition-builders, advocates, and connectors who use the American Heart Association's resources and political capital to recognize the tremendous power already within Black, African American, Latino, Native American, Alaskan Native, Hawaiian Native, Pacific Islander, and Asian American communities and families with low incomes.

By trusting, supporting, and investing in the people and places experiencing the greatest health inequities, we can remove barriers that stand in the way of healthy, thriving children and families everywhere.

From its inception, Voices for Healthy Kids has had an unwavering commitment to the inclusion of health equity across our organization, and we continuously seek improvement. To fully realize our mission, we must address the inequities, biases, and racism that purposefully exist in current systems and policies, and have intentionally marginalized or excluded some communities. We need to work to understand how they have impacted the lives of children, and then do everything we can to change our racist and oppressive systems. 

“We are committed to centering health equity and racial justice in our work. It is our responsibility to elevate communities that have been systemically marginalized and oppressed, in order to create sustainable policy solutions.”

— April Wallace, Health Equity Partnership Manager, Voices for Healthy Kids 

In collaboration with community groups, we are advancing policies that prioritize to people experiencing the greatest health disparities — those who are Black, African American, Latino, Native American, Alaskan Native, Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Asian American and families who have low incomes. Together, we are helping to build a more equitable nation. 

In FY 2020 - 2021, we:

• Diversified our Strategic Advisory Committee, which had historically only included national organizations, to include community-based organizations that represent Black and Indigenous communities and other people of color.

• Expanded our Policy Research Network to include equity-focused research experts who challenge us to see shortcomings in our research efforts, such as design and methodology; help get us closer to root causes of inequities; and become more anti-racist in our policy agenda. These experts’ knowledge is having ripple effects beyond Voices for Healthy Kids — reaching others with whom we work to dismantle inequities every day. 

• Expanded our research vendors and advisors to include a community of diverse evaluators who drive and support the practice of culturally responsive and equitable evaluation.

• Identified geographies experiencing the greatest health disparities and focused our grantmaking on these places. We also piloted strategies to ensure funding is directed to organizations with diverse leadership and that grantees are engaging communities of color, high-poverty areas, and areas with high food insecurity.

• Created a new Racial Equity in Public Policy Guide to advance both equitable policies and conversations about structural racism. We disseminated the guide widely and provided trainings to organizations, public health leaders, and funders nationwide on its use. 

• Continued to deepen our staff’s personal and professional understanding of racial equity through ongoing training, strategy sessions, and leadership commitments.

"Voices has always focused on equity. It drives me so much every day. They really got me engaged and feeling passionate about addressing health disparities.”

— Voices for Healthy Kids Grantee (submitted anonymously)

Case Study: Community Program Teaches D.C. Residents How to Be Their Own Best Advocates

Particularly in this past year, Voices for Healthy Kids has fostered a learning community—one where we weren’t just imparting campaign guidance, skills, and technical assistance but also learning from campaigns and communities. One way in which we did this was by intentionally building diverse relationships, including adding additional leadership to ask us hard questions and hold us accountable for centering racial equity in absolutely everything we do.