Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital, in partnership with the Alliance for Health Equity, is preparing to conclude the Community Input Survey as they work to improve the health of our communities. If you live in Chicago or suburban Cook County, please take the five-minute survey to share what’s most important to you about your community’s health. We want to know what you think is going well, what needs to be improved and how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted you and your family.

Thank you to the many CLOCC partners who have taken time to participate in this assessment process. We encourage you to take the additional step of sharing the survey with your networks. A communications toolkit, including English and Spanish resources, social media posts and additional flyers is available. Contact us for details.

After a lengthy administrative process, and thanks to diligent attention from health advocates across Illinois, the State has appropriated $500,000 to support the Healthy Local Food Incentives Fund. This funding will enable SNAP users to double their purchasing power for healthy foods at local famers markets through the Link Up program, managed by Experimental Station. "Link Match" doubles the value of Link purchases at farmers markets by providing matching currency redeemable at the market for fresh local fruits and vegetables.

To ensure this funding benefits the kids and families in your community, share the flyers below with your local farmers markets to help connect them to the Link Match program. Contact Experimental Station with questions.

The Health Education Specialist - Diabetes is a key team member in Erie's Health Promotions team, bolstering support for patients at risk for and diagnosed with diabetes. This position is also a critical link supporting Erie's Northwestern University research partnership around prediabetes and diabetes prevention. We need someone who enjoys working collaboratively with patients to manage complicated health and social issues and within and across teams to improve diabetes prevention and management.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) helped lead the effort for passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, a landmark law that got soda and most junk food out of schools and ensures that school meals provide more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and less salt and saturated fat. We work to ensure that school meals remain nutritious for the 30 million school children, most of whom are low-income, who participate in the National School Breakfast and Lunch Programs. Unfortunately, this progress has stalled, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made healthy school meals even more critical for children. 

We are searching for a Policy Coordinator, working as part of the school foods team, to primarily build CSPI’s body of advocacy resources for federal, state, and local school food priorities and help coordinate coalition activity. This position will report to the Senior Policy Associate, and is located in CSPI’s Washington, DC office or remotely. The anticipated start date for this position is February 1, 2022. 

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is searching for an Engagement Associate to work on cross-functional teams to build and maintain trusting relationships with leaders, organizations, coalitions, and networks, working within and alongside diverse communities including BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ communities, those with disabilities, and those living in rural and other under-resourced communities. This work includes community engagement and capacity building initiatives to strengthen the ability of under resourced organizations to engage in policy advocacy and corporate campaigns, and strive to center the leadership of those most impacted by health inequities including those disproportionately targeted by unhealthy beverage and food marketing. 

Food businesses create good jobs with relatively low corresponding educational requirements. A lack of affordable food grade spaces available for rent and the high upfront cost to build out a food grade space creates a significant barrier to growth for food entrepreneurs. The Hatchery removes these barriers to growth and creates good jobs in the City of Chicago. The Hatchery Chicago enables local entrepreneurs to build and grow successful food and beverage businesses and provides job training and placement programs, which in turn create sustainable economic growth and new job opportunities.

The Hatchery Chicago is currently hiring for the following paid internships. All applicants must be over the age of 18, have a ServSafe Food Handler Certificate (if applicant doesn’t have one, ICNC can assist), and have an interest in the food and beverage industry. Interns will be compensated at $15 per hour.

Connect with CLOCC's network of nearly 3,000 childhood obesity prevention advocates by listing your organization's upcoming events or current job openings on the Consortium's website. Upon submission, postings will be approved by CLOCC staff; events and careers applicable to the CLOCC network may also be featured in this newsletter. If you have questions or are not able to access the webpage, contact info@clocc.net. CLOCC will not publish for-profit services or events, or products for sale.

For questions related to testing criteria and general information about COVID-19 and children, please contact the COVID-19 Call Center at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital at 312.227.5300. The Call Center is staffed by Lurie Children’s nurses and is available Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM CT, and Saturday, 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM CT.

Last week, the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine was approved for individuals ages 5-11. While this is welcome news to many CLOCC partners, their families, and the families they serve, parents and children may also experience appropriate anxiety regarding the vaccine. Some children also have sensory needs that can make receiving the vaccine difficult. Experts at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital have published some simple tips to help make a child’s COVID-19 vaccine uptake as easy as possible.

Data Across Sectors for Health (DASH), with the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), in partnership with the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS), is launching the second round of the Learning and Action in Policy and Partnerships (LAPP) program. To build new opportunities for more sustainable efforts by local or state governments in collaboration with community partnerships, DASH will grant $80,000 each to five awardees to promote data-sharing and data-integration aiming to improve health, equity, and well-being in local communities and identify learnings for how states can support community data sharing through policy. Learn more about this opportunity here. The application deadline is 2:30 PM CT, Friday, November 12th.

Evidence for Action has released a new open and rolling call for Innovative Research to Advance Racial Equity. Through this CFP they seek to fund researchers, practitioners, community leaders, advocates, policymakers, and/or other stakeholders to investigate the impacts of various social interventions on health and racial equity outcomes. They are interested in projects that develop and disseminate evidence about what works to advance racial equity and improve health and well-being outcomes for people and communities of color.