Human Services to Support Rural Health – Models and Innovations

These stories feature model programs and successful rural projects that can serve as a source of ideas and provide lessons others have learned. Some of the projects or programs may no longer be active. Read about the criteria and evidence-base for programs included.

Effective Examples

Parent Partners
Updated/reviewed March 2023

• 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 July 2022

• 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 5,100 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

The Rural Outreach Center
Added June 2023

• Need: To expand services for individuals and families living in poverty in rural Western New York.
• Intervention: The Rural Outreach Center (ROC) offers care coordination, therapy, budgeting assistance, and multiple other services and opportunities to help address immediate needs as well as empower individuals to work toward long-term freedom from generational poverty.
• Results: The Rural Outreach Center serves approximately 250 adults and children each year through counseling, care coordination, and empowerment opportunities. The ROC reports that many participants have achieved and sustained goals related to housing, savings, employment, and other social determinants of health – which are also measures of poverty.

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.

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.

NEON Pathways Community Hub
Updated/reviewed July 2020

• Need: Connect individuals to services that address health barriers.
• Intervention: A pay-for-outcomes model utilizing Community Health Workers who help provide community members with tools to address needs associated with improving health.
• Results: Trained Community Health Workers help patients navigate the healthcare and social service systems and provide education about community healthcare resources.