For the Sake of All partners with St. Louis County Library

For the Sake of All, the multidisciplinary project aimed at improving the health and well-being of African Americans in St. Louis, has partnered with the St. Louis County Library system to help further promote its recommendations.

“We are very excited to be partnering with the St. Louis County Library system,” said Jason Q. Purnell, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and lead researcher on the project, which is partially funded by the Missouri Foundation for Health.

“This partnership allows us to expand the reach of For the Sake of All and provide valuable data and recommendations for moving our region forward,” Purnell said. “We hope that this partnership will be a catalyst and support as our community continues to find ways to come together around issues of equity and opportunity.”

The first phase of For the Sake of All culminated in May 2014 with the release of a final report at a community conference.

The second phase focuses on engagement of the community, business leaders and policy makers in order to mobilize support for implementation of recommendations made in the initial phase of the work. The recommendations are:

  • investing in quality early childhood development;
  • creating economic opportunities for low-to-moderate income families;
  • investing in coordinated school health;
  • investing in mental health awareness, access, and surveillance;
  • investing in health-promoting neighborhoods; and
  • enhance chronic and infectious disease prevention and management.

The project team, in partnership with FOCUS St. Louis and the Brown School’s Policy Forum, will host a Community Action Forum and publish a Discussion Guide and Action Toolkit set for each recommendation. The next event is scheduled for Thursday, March 12, at the Parents as Teachers National Center in Maryland Heights, Mo.

As part of the library partnership, copies of the report will be available at all St. Louis County Library branches and on the library’s website. Reference librarians will create a reading list to complement the report. For those who would like to use For the Sake of All in a larger discussion, the library is creating book discussion kits with the report as a centerpiece. The kits will contain multiple copies of the report, as well as discussion questions.

For more information on For the Sake of All, including discussion guides, action toolkits and resource lists, visit forthesakeofall.org.