ELEVATING COMMUNITIES, TRANSFORMING CARE. Summer 2023 | | |
 
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Dear friends,
I recently returned to work after taking a week off for summer vacation with my family. The trip had all the trappings of a classic summer excursion: steamy hot weather, relaxing days at the beach, and the delightful taste of sweet summer fruits. I felt so lucky to have a week like that, unwinding and disconnecting from work…mostly.
I found myself unable to completely detach, as tucked into my beach bag was the captivating book, American Sirens, written by Kevin Hazzard. If you have not yet heard of this book, this one is a must-read, particularly for those with an interest in EMS. It details the fascinating, and at times, tragic history of the Freedom House Ambulance Service, the first team of fully trained paramedics in the United States. A team that happened to be all Black.
Fast forward to today. We are investing substantial resources to recruit, train, and retain paramedics who reflect the communities they serve. Why? Because like those who worked at Freedom House, we believe that when people in crisis are supported by responders who look like them and can relate to them, health outcomes improve (see related OpEd below). American Sirens, and the story of Freedom House Ambulance Service is a testament to this concept, with the data to prove it. Yet here we are, 50 years after those first paramedics made history, still fighting to address racial health inequities.
American Sirens is a story about racism, about American history, and about good medical care. It shows what can happen when a group of dedicated individuals, hailing from local communities, are trained to respond to medical and psychiatric emergencies in their own neighborhoods.
I’d like to challenge us all to use the inspirational story of Freedom House to energize our own efforts to reimagine emergency and prehospital care from a racial equity perspective. Admittedly, at times, it has been hard to envision what those words even mean, what shape they might take in the transformative change we seek to create. So how wonderful it was to read a book and see a glimpse into a universe I have only previously imagined.
Tanir Ami
CEO, CARESTAR Foundation
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CARESTAR Announces More Than $2M in New Grants | |
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The CARESTAR Foundation recently announced an investment of more than $2 million in 10 nonprofit organizations that are collectively working to bring greater racial equity to emergency and prehospital care in California. Grant recipients announced this month include:
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California Pan-Ethnic Health Network (CPEHN) - general operating support to help CPEHN's ongoing advocacy efforts, advancing health and racial equity by building people power, shaping narratives, and changing policy in order to transform systems.
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College for Behavioral Health Leadership - to fund a California-based EMS representative to join the organization’s Equity Grounded Leadership Fellow Program.
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Cristo Rey De La Salle East Bay High School - to provide students an opportunity to work with community-based organizations focusing on emergency services.
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Exhaling Injustice - general operating support to help the organization's mobile response teams training and development, and training to reduce police-induced trauma.
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Health Alliance for Violence Intervention (HAVI) - general operating support to help ongoing work in building hospital and community collaboration to advance equitable, trauma-informed care for victims of violence.
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Kings View Behavioral Health System - as lead agency for a collaborative that will expand the reach and coordination of mobile behavioral health crisis response teams in Fresno County, and increase partnerships and engagement with racially diverse community members.
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Northern California Emergency Medical Services - to reach out and connect directly with community members across five counties to better understand experiences and needs with EMS.
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San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District - as lead agency for a collaborative that will launch a pilot program that will divert mental health calls from 911 to the Contra Costa Crisis Center, reducing the need for EMS agency response.
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Still I Rise Films - to support the production of a documentary that follows the lives of three young men training to become EMTs in California while struggling with their experiences of growing up poor, young, and Black in America.
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Youth ALIVE! - general operating support to help the organization maintain 24/7 monitoring of Oakland Police Department incident notifications and hospital trauma center admissions and deploy immediate crisis intervention specialists to hospital bedsides of shooting victims.
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OPINION
A Diverse EMS Workforce: A Benefit to Patients, Communities, and the System
Our CEO, Tanir Ami recently wrote an article on how a lack of diversity in EMS can have serious consequences for patients, especially for those in culturally and ethnically diverse communities.
The need for greater diversity in the EMS workforce is a critical issue that has been overlooked for far too long.
A recent study by the Healthforce Center at UCSF, funded by the CARESTAR Foundation, found that California's EMT and paramedic workforce is disproportionately white and male, and they are linguistically less diverse than California’s general population.

This lack of diversity can have serious consequences for patients, especially for those in culturally and ethnically diverse communities throughout California. And while none of this is surprising, it's certainly still alarming.
Why? Because diversity matters – in all settings, but especially in healthcare, where communication, trust, respect, and understanding can mean the difference between life and death...
Read the full article here.
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Honoring Key Milestones in the Fight for Racial and Gender
Equity in the Oakland Fire Department
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From left to right, Eve Grau of Royal Ambulance and Tanir Ami of CARESTAR, with filmmaker Zahrah Farmer. | |
 
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On March 22, CARESTAR had the privilege of co-sponsoring a private screening event of the amazing documentary film, “Behind the Station Door”, with our friends at Royal Ambulance, The film, produced and directed by award winning filmmaker Zahrah Farmer, celebrates and honors 100 years of African American men and 40 years of women in the Oakland Fire Department.
“This story really spoke to us,” said CARESTAR CEO Tanir Ami, in front of a lively crowd that included much of the cast, active and retired Oakland firefighters, other first responders, and local students training to become EMTs and paramedics from EMS Corps and Bay Area Youth EMT.
The event was a special opportunity for CARESTAR to join a community, and to join forces in our efforts to bring attention and voice to two groups that are still underrepresented in first response - Black people and women.
“We believe very strongly that the workforce should reflect the communities that we are trying to serve and better health outcomes will come as a result of that.”
Photo credit: gemalunaphotography.com
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Congratulations to Dr. Gene Hern, EMS Medical Director of the Year
On May 23, CARESTAR friend and advisor, Dr. Gene Hern (EMS Base Hospital Director, Highland Hospital), was recognized as EMS Medical Director of the Year at the 2022 California EMS Awards ceremony in Los Angeles,
"Dr. Hern has been a tireless advocate for improving the care for those suffering from opioid use disorder and was instrumental in demonstrating the utility of EMS initiated buprenorphine as part of the continuum of care," noted EMSA.
This award, "honors a physician who serves or has served the EMS system by providing medical direction, on-line or off-line, and who has served with distinction."
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Bay Area Youth EMT Celebrates Spring 2023 Class
This month saw yet another class of inspiring students complete Bay Area Youth EMTs training program, with family and friends gathering with graduates at Alameda County Fire Station 35 in Emeryville.
A CARESTAR grant recipient, Bay Area Youth EMT works increase diversity in the first responder profession by instructing inner-city youth in the EMT and Fire curriculum. Its goal is to create civic-minded EMTs and firefighters who will utilize their newly learned skills to work with community based programs, as well as local EMS and fire agencies.
Bay EMT offers the fire curriculum through a collaborative effort with the Alameda County Fire Department and the Fremont Fire Department.
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CARESTAR is committed to ensuring that communities have the voice, power, and influence to transform emergency and pre-hospital care to work for them. A big part of that commitment is to listen...
According to the State of California-Emergency Medical Services Authority, California EMS providers receive over 6.4 million calls every year, but limited data on the specific experiences of communities of color makes it challenging to establish and implement equity-focused interventions that meet true community need.
With funding from the CARESTAR Foundation and the California Health Care Foundation, People Power for Public Health surveyed BIPOC* community members across California to help fill this gap and share their voices. Below is a snapshot of responses related to emergency response. People Power for Public Health is a project of the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network. For full research methodology, please visit their website.
*Black, Indigenous, and People of Color
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Advocates call for changes to 911 response, but police have mixed feelings
A mountain of evidence shows police often fail to respond properly to people experiencing a mental health crisis. It can lead to avoidable deaths and criminalization of mental illness, especially among people of color. A poll commissioned by Public Health Advocates, a Davis-based health policy nonprofit, showed that more than two-thirds of California voters want behavioral health professionals to be part of the emergency response in non-life-threatening situations San Francisco Chronicle
Black patients far less likely to receive key opioid addiction medication, study finds
Black people are far less likely than other Americans to receive buprenorphine, a key medication for treating opioid use disorder, according to a new study. White patients in need of addiction care were prescribed buprenorphine at more than twice the rate of Black patients in the six months preceding an addiction-related health emergency, according to the analysis. Stat News
What mental health experts are saying about the 988 crisis line and its future
The new national mental health crisis hotline 988 launched last summer. Mental health experts discuss how it's working and what lies ahead with student reporters from Youthcast Media Group. USA Today
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