Communities of Care

The Communities of Care (CoC) Initiative is a multi-year initiative in the greater Houston Metropolitan Area that strengthens community environments to support youth and family resilience, mental health, and wellbeing—with  an emphasis on children and youth of color and their families. Launched in 2019 by the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health and coordinated by our team, CoC brings together local leaders, community residents, and organizations to plan and implement community-driven strategies to advance equity and wellbeing. 

CoC is grounded in the understanding that every community deserves to thrive. The initiative promotes community-level solutions—such as fostering social connection, improving the built environment, and increasing access to economic opportunity—to strengthen protective factors and resilience. Across the region, ten community collaboratives work to address systemic drivers of inequity and advance local priorities including environmental justice, neighborhood infrastructure, school climate, safety, and youth leadership.

The final year of CoC—from May 2024 to December 2025—focuses on sustaining long-term impact and advancing shared priorities across nine collaboratives. This phase centers four commitments that guide CoC’s approach: understanding how community environments shape wellbeing; fostering inclusive and shared decision-making; elevating dialogue about how racism impacts mental health; and supporting ongoing learning that strengthens community wellbeing. Building on the foundation developed over the first five years, we are deepening leadership, strengthening collaborative action, and supporting community collaborative partners to sustain CoC’s mission beyond the initiative period. 

Primary activities:

• Coordinating and guiding the CoC initiative across its full six-year trajectory, working with all collaboratives to move from community assessment and early strategy pilots to shared planning, implementation, and long-term sustainability.

• Facilitating shared learning, leadership development, and advocacy across collaboratives, engaging youth, families, and resident leaders in peer learning that builds collaboration skills, elevates lived experience, and strengthens advocacy agendas and upstream policy strategies.

• Building capacity and advancing youth and resident leadership through training, coaching, and technical assistance focused on shared decision-making, anti-racist practice, budget advocacy, healing-centered youth work, community organizing, and advocacy that strengthens school, neighborhood, and community environments.

• Strengthening sustainability strategies across collaboratives to support continued community-led work beyond the initiative period.

• Elevating shared learning and visibility through storytelling, documentation of lessons learned, cross-collaborative exchange, and support for partners to share their impact with local, state, and national audiences.

• Leading the CoC Policy Peer Exchange to identify shared policy priorities and support state-level advocacy, including organizing a Capitol Day.

• Collaborating on the design and implementation of the Young Minds Matter 2025 Conference, aligning program development, facilitation, and learning with CoC’s values and priorities.