By Wesley Prater

As part of the NLC’s Cities Expanding Health Care Access for Children and Families Initiative, funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies, 12 cities recently were awarded planning grants up to $30,000 to develop citywide outreach campaigns, focused on enrolling eligible children and families in Medicaid and CHIP.  During a six-month planning period, the grantees will work on business plans that will serve as blueprints for implementation of the outreach campaigns.

Selected cities include:

• Aurora, CO;
• Jacksonville, FL;
• Savannah, GA;
• New Bedford, MA;
• Garden City, MI;
• Hattiesburg, MS
• Omaha, NE;
• Newark, NJ;
• Columbia, PA;
• Dallas, TX;
• Houston, TX; and
• Providence, RI.

As you may recall from my previous blog, the 12 cities were selected from a pool of 22 cities that attended one of NLC’s Cities Expanding Health Access for Children and Families Leadership Academies earlier this year.

In 2014, 6 of the 12 cities will be receiving implementation grants of up to $260,000 over two years and continued technical assistance from NLC.

More details can be found here.

Congratulations to the 12 cities on this opportunity to improve outreach for children and families!