Backbone Integration Steering Committee

About the Backbone Steering Committee

The Backbone Steering Committee is grounded in compassion, inclusion and integrity as we strive to effectively and equitably distribute this funding to support historically underserved people with intersectional needs in the community of Windham County. We seek to shift the values of the grant fund distribution process towards the amplification of the voices and narratives of people seeking services, and in turn, the promotion of systemic change.

Community Resilience Grant

The Community Resilience Grant - which written proposals must be received by Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 11:59pm - is a collaboration among the VT Department of Health, VT Community Health Equity Partnership (VtCHEP), United Way of Windham County (UWWC), and a Backbone Steering Committee (BSC) made up of 4 community members from around the county - facilitated by UWWC. The contents of this RFP were reviewed and approved by the BSC.

Grant Qualifications

We have the ability to disburse $150,000 to marginalized communities in Windham County, VT. We hope to improve resource access and support efforts to build thriving communities. Specifically, we hope the funds will address:

Current Funding Limitations

● Enhance collaboration within current services or those outside of the organization
● Augment restrictive funds that do not meet intersectional needs
● Support services to supplement participant resource navigation

Cultural Humility

● Increase access to in-person interpreters (especially ASL)
● Translate any materials into French, Dari, Pashto, Chinese, and/or Spanish
● Promote recruitment and retention of employees from underrepresented social identity groups
● Address common biases and/or providing education in service delivery including, but not limited to:
o Eliminating Fatphobia
o Educating providers on LGBTQ+ health needs
o Providing non-European-based approaches to diagnoses, treatments, and language services
o Correcting metrics for service delivery impacted by historically oppressive policies (e.g. pain scales, medical lab measurements, multiple choice in race/ethnicity data collection)