Ensure Health
No matter where we live or what we look like, we all deserve to live safe and healthy lives. However, over decades, Wisconsin lawmakers have chosen the wealthy few over our communities. This has resulted in unprecedented disparities in education, income, housing and more—the social determinants of our communities’ health. And, some lawmakers have chosen to play politics instead of providing the health care that our communities desperately need. When we work together and address the root causes of health inequities, we give everyone the opportunity to live happier, healthier lives.
With partners at the Noble Community Health Center’s Children’s Health Day, August 2024, in Wautoma.
Badgercare vs Medicaid
Medicaid provides health insurance for more than one million people in Wisconsin. BadgerCare, one of several Medicaid programs, is health insurance for kids, parents, and adults with low incomes who typically don’t have access to coverage through their job. Medicaid also offers long term care for people with disabilities and older adults who need support to stay independent in their communities.
Learn more about Medicaid vs BadgerCare here.
Advocating for Health Care Coverage for All Wisconsin Residents
Physical and mental health care is a human right and access to care is essential for a just society. No matter someone’s race, how much money they make, or where they were born we all deserve comprehensive, affordable, quality health care. We are working for that future, but we know we have a long way to go.
Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act provides health care for one in four people living in Wisconsin. Through community and partner informed research, data-analysis, advocacy, and education we work to strengthen, protect, and improve Medicaid and access to affordable health coverage and care.
We team up with providers, patients, workers, advocates, and other stakeholders to push for policies such as extending postpartum Medicaid coverage, fully expanding Medicaid, and making it easier for people to get the care they need Medicaid and insurance providers covering care provided by doulas, community health workers, and other trusted sources of care close to communities.
Sharing personal stories that we can bring to the state capital is one of the most powerful ways to join the fight for a just healthcare system.
COVID Compromise Bill Blocked by Assembly Republicans Who Seek to Limit Role of Local Communities
It has been more than nine months and 5,300 COVID-19 deaths in Wisconsin since state lawmakers have enacted any legislation to help combat the pandemic. In fact, Wisconsin’s legislature has been the least active full-time legislature in the country since the pandemic...
Wisconsin COVID-19 Proposal is an Attempted Power Grab in Disguise
Wisconsin Assembly Republicans have released a proposal that is theoretically a plan to fight COVID-19 but in reality is a thinly-veiled attempt to strip power from schools, local officials, and the Governor, and transfer that power to legislative leaders. The...
Moving Wisconsin Forward: Balance, Healing, and Sowing for Our Shared Future
“We need real investment in our communities, in our safety and our ability to access jobs and our ability to access good quality education and housing and not to be discriminated against in every aspect of society.” - Opal Tometi, Black Lives Matter Co-Founder The key...
Healthy Food & Active Kids
Nourishing food and safe, inviting physical activity are a basic need for every child in Wisconsin. But, some lawmakers choose to line the pocketbooks of Wisconsin’s wealthy few instead of reinvesting our tax dollars back into our communities. Both Wisconsin’s urban and rural communities are too often in food deserts where healthy food is expensive and hard to access. Many communities and neighborhoods don’t have safe, inviting playgrounds and outdoor spaces. Mental health is suffering.
Kids Forward helps lead two statewide coalitions that work to improve nutrition security and physical activity, as well as opportunities for outdoor learning and play. Learning where our food comes from: gardening and cooking are essential as we “Grow Healthy Kids”.
Together we have developed resources and trainings, provided financial support, and partnered with state agencies and local organizations to get kids outside and eating locally grown food.
Lake Michigan School Food System Innovation Hub
We have partnered with the USDA and Illinois Public Health Institute to launch the Lake Michigan School Food Systems Innovation Hub. We’re funding collaborations with farmers, food suppliers, food service directors, community-based program leaders and more to strengthen the K-12 food supply chain.
Healthy Early
A statewide, cross-sector partnership, Healthy Early is working to create equitable opportunities for healthy eating and physical activity for Wisconsin kids and families. Kids Forward currently serves as a convener for the coalition.
To learn more, contact Daithi Wolfe.
Healthy Early leaders at their first in-person retreat in April 2024.
Improving Language Access in Wisconsin
In 2024, Kids Forward and the Multicultural Coalition launched our Language Access Awareness Campaign. This partnership grew out of a need to address language barriers not only at the direct service level, but also at the systems and policy level. To ensure families can access services and meet their basic needs, communities must work collectively to provide meaningful language access services up front, not just translations by request.
Wisconsin currently does not have a statewide language access plan, although some counties and state agencies have prepared their own. Now is the time for local and state governments to get proactive about creating robust language plans and ensuring that all families, regardless of language, can access the critical resources they need. Contact your legislators and Governor Tony Evers to ask them to support the implementation of a statewide language access plan.
To learn more, contact Amanda Martinez.
With the Multicultural Coalition Inc, in October 2024 we brought together advocates and service providers in the Fox Valley to share challenges and solutions around language access.
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Research & Publications
Wisconsin Youth Conversations
healthTIDE and Kids Forward hosted four Healthy Food Youth Conversations with 30 middle and high school Latino, Black, and Asian students from Milwaukee, Appleton, and Stevens Point, which took place between December 2023 and January 2024.
Not All Heroes Wear Capes, Millions Wear Wings
As our nation begins to transition in to the next phase of our pandemic response, which includes planning for reopening states and our larger economy, we must center the well-being and basic needs of those essential frontline workers that have continued to be...
Republican Litigation Seeks a Slower Process for Pandemic Planning, Concentrating Power in a Handful of Legislators
Wisconsin Is Second-to-Last State to Adjust Medicaid for the Pandemic On April 20, Wisconsin became the 49th state to get federal approval for adjustments in Medicaid that strengthen the program’s role in combating the Coronavirus pandemic. By contrast, almost...
Lesson from a Pandemic: Everyone Needs Health Insurance
The coronavirus pandemic is causing widespread unemployment throughout the world, and many in the US are losing more than their job and income. They are also losing their health insurance at a time when coverage is critical. In the last few weeks, the US has seen...
Both Essential and Expendable
Folks of Color on the Front Lines of Our Collective Survival and Our Losses PDF Version The coronavirus has and will forever change our communities and our nation. It has taken tens of thousands of lives in the United States and our collective losses continue to grow....
In the Fight for the Environment We Need to Center Communities of Color
Today, April 22nd 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day; founded in Wisconsin in 1970 by Sen. Gaylord Nelson. Nelson was one of many treasured environmentalists in Wisconsin’s history including some of the nation’s premier conservation advocates: Increase...
Extending “Safer at Home” is the Right Call for Wisconsin’s Health
Governor Evers is right to extend the Safer at Home Order to protect the lives of the people of Wisconsin. The total number of infections and deaths in Wisconsin is much lower than it would have been without the order, and it is premature to change tactics now...
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