Skip to main content
Rural Health Information Hub

Rural Project Examples: Human services

Effective Examples

Parent Partners

Updated/reviewed March 2024

  • Need: To support parents whose children have been removed from the home so that the parents can make the changes needed for the children to return safely home.
  • Intervention: A statewide program in Iowa pairs these parents with mentors who have successfully navigated their own child welfare cases.
  • Results: Participants' children were more likely to return home than non-participants' children and participants were less likely to have another child removal within a year of the child coming home.

Medical Legal Partnership of Southern Illinois

Updated/reviewed August 2023

  • Need: Legal barriers often prevent economically disadvantaged people in Southern Illinois from obtaining positive health outcomes despite receiving medical care.
  • Intervention: The Medical Legal Partnership of Southern Illinois (MLPSI) was formed to create a system where medical providers can refer patients in need of legal assistance to local attorneys.
  • Results: Over 5,400 patients have utilized MLPSI since its founding in 2002. The program has relieved over $8.1 million in medical debt for both hospitals and patients.

Other Project Examples

First Day Forward

funded by the Health Resources Services Administration

Added March 2024

  • Need: Enhanced support for people with substance use disorders leaving jail and reentering communities in rural northeastern Kentucky.
  • Intervention: A reentry program that uses peer support specialists to teach cognitive life skills, obtain essential identification documents, and help people create and follow personalized case plans before and after their release.
  • Results: More than 420 people have been served by First Day Forward, with recidivism rates significantly lower among people who successfully completed the program.

The Possibility Shop

Updated/reviewed January 2024

  • Need: To connect vulnerable populations in Allegany County, Maryland, to health and human services and to items like hygiene products, food, and clothing.
  • Intervention: The Possibility Shop partners with health organizations, insurance navigators, food banks, and other agencies.
  • Results: In 2023, 8,684 service encounters occurred and 501 intakes to services were performed.

HealthStreet Cognitive Screening Project

Updated/reviewed November 2023

  • Need: Because of the benefits associated with early identification of conditions causing memory problems, Florida's rural populations will benefit from access to screening for possible Alzheimer's Disease and other types of dementia.
  • Intervention: A state university uses a state health department grant to develop a cognitive impairment screening program implemented by rural Community Health Workers. An additional grant provides rural medical practitioners with a free online continuing education module covering cognitive impairment and dementia.
  • Results: To date, over 400 individuals have completed health screenings and over 900 referrals have been made to community social and medical services. At grant cycle completion, formal analysis of cognitive screening and referral to medical services will be shared.

Rural Libraries and Health Cooperative Agreement

Updated/reviewed July 2023

  • Need: To increase access to healthcare and social services in rural South Carolina via library systems.
  • Intervention: Pilot sites are hiring social workers and community health workers to provide consultations, case management, and referrals.
  • Results: One library screens an average of 215 residents a month, and another library's programming reached over 800 female patrons.

HCC Network of Rural Missouri's Project Connect Event

Updated/reviewed April 2023

  • Need: To expand public health and human services to adults living in rural West Central Missouri.
  • Intervention: Health Care Collaborative Network of Rural Missouri organizes Project Connect events, daylong resource fairs that offer free public health and human services to underserved adults.
  • Results: In 2022, Project Connect events welcomed 179 guests and facilitated 2,673 total service encounters.

Outer Cape Health Services Community Resource Navigator Program

funded by the Health Resources Services Administration

Updated/reviewed March 2023

  • Need: Improving outcomes for Outer and Lower Cape Cod residents in need of social, behavioral health, and substance use disorder services while reducing the burden and costs to town agencies and hospital emergency rooms.
  • Intervention: The Community Resource Navigator Program works with local social services, town agencies, faith-based institutions, hospitals, the criminal justice system, and others to identify and connect clients to needed services.
  • Results: Clients are gaining access to the care they were once lacking, as measured by improvements in self-sufficiency. The program also helps community partners and stakeholders work together to reduce the impact of risks associated with behavioral health symptoms, substance use disorder, and social determinants of health.

Together for Beaufort County

Updated/reviewed October 2022

  • Need: A community-wide collaborative process to identify and address specific quality-of-life challenges confronting the citizens of Beaufort County, South Carolina.
  • Intervention: Together for Beaufort County facilitates the coordination of local and regional coalitions that address economic, social, health, educational, and environmental factors through shared collective impact process.
  • Results: Out of 46 counties in South Carolina, Beaufort County has reached the top ranking in health outcomes.

Project VISION

Updated/reviewed December 2021

  • Need: To reduce opioid use and increase quality of life in Rutland, Vermont.
  • Intervention: Project VISION works to reduce opioid use through community engagement.
  • Results: Since 2012, Project VISION has collected and disposed of 550 pounds of unused medications, reduced thefts by over 32%, and had a 50% improvement on a neighborhood quality of life survey.