Community Partners
Adelante Mujeres
Adelante Mujeres is dedicated to helping Latina women find their voices so that they can be seen, heard, and represented in their communities. Adelante Mujeres provides holistic education and empowerment opportunities to marginalized Latina women and families to ensure full participation and active leadership in the community; we are equally dedicated to amplifying the voices of underrepresented communities.
Our Equity Team collaborates with Adelante Mujeres to discuss elements of community environments that can be addressed to enhance their quality of life, health behaviors, and outcomes. We are committed to giving this group a seat at the table so that the policies and legislation reflect the needs of this community, creating positive social change at the grassroots level.
African American Providers Group
The African American Providers Group, a community-led group of mental health providers in Portland’s Black Community who are active in promoting the importance of mental health and culturally specific resources. Lines for Life is a regular participant in bi-weekly meetings, allowing our Equity Team to assess the needs of the community, create culturally responsive resources, and establish ongoing relationships. Together, we have created the Black Providers Resource Guide: a culturally specific guide to all Black-owned or led businesses, physicians, and behavioral healthcare providers.
Coalition of African and African American Pastors (CAAAP)
CAAAP is a group of pastors from churches around the Portland metro area who are deeply committed to helping meet the mental and behavioral health needs of their congregations – and themselves. Our relationship started with an emphasis on supporting pastors struggling with their own mental health, worn thin by the realities of daily gun violence and resulting funerals plaguing the Black community in Portland.
We support CAAAP with mental health trainings and presentations from our Director of Equity to educate them on culturally specific resources to heal themselves and their congregations. We have further grown this relationship to include a community-wide focus, including co-hosting the Healing Trauma & Resilience Summit in response to the escalation of violence and crime happening in Portland’s communities of color.
Highland Christian Church
Senior Pastor at Highland Christian Church, Shon Neyland, partners with our Equity Team to host events within the Black community, promoted by members of his church. Events have ranged from our Healing Trauma & Resilience Summit to a Black youth forum with the Portland Police department.
With the rise in homicide rates due to gang violence and crime, Portland has become the most dangerous city for a Black person to live in. While dealing with the surplus of violence, the Black community also combats their daily stressors such as racism, finances, etc.; their emotional and mental well-being are consistently being negatively affected and neglected. Senior Pastor at Highland Christian Church, Shon Neyland, and his church are highly committed to working with Lines for Life to push the need for culturally specific resources and to destigmatize the negative connotation that mental health has in this community.
Leaders Become Legends
Learn more about Leaders Become Legends
Multnomah County Health Department
The Multnomah County Health Department works alongside communities to promote and protect both the physical and mental health of all people in Multnomah County. In partnership with Lines for Life, Multnomah County is deeply involved in efforts to improve access to behavioral healthcare in communities of color. We support Multnomah County by equipping them with a directory of culturally specific resources in the Portland-metro area, and provide culturally specific training such as H.E.A.T., a targeted mental health training for young Black men in the criminal justice system.
Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center
POIC provides education, mentoring, family outreach, and employment training while also operating an initiative at Rosemary Anderson school that is designed to uplift, empower, and support young people of color. POIC’s mission and initiatives align with our Equity team’s mission and strategy to get out into the community and promote mental wellness in communities, allowing the perfect partnership between our work.
By partnering with POIC, we can work together to support their community of students and give them access to culturally specific mental health resources. For our current project with POIC, the Equity Team and Communications Team developed a culturally relevant, youth-specific survey of questions that gauge one’s mental and emotional health. This survey allows our team to investigate baseline needs and interests and help set priorities for work with POIC.
Providence & Providence Promotores
Providence has a ready-made network and partnerships which offer a perfect alliance to bring this neighborhood-based approach to delivering mental wellness services: the Promotores Program. The Promotores program includes about 140 trained health promotors from the Spanish-speaking community, devoted to bringing their education and experiences back to their community with the goal of opening the health care system to people who would otherwise go without.
The Promotores program focuses generally on building bridges between Spanish-speaking communities and access to affordable healthcare, empowering promotors to take resources and build trust within their communities. Working alongside the Promotores program, we are able to further open access to mental health resources and destigmatize conversations about mental health in these communities.
Raices de Bienestar (RdB)
Raices de Bienestar aims to improve and strengthen the mental health and emotional wellbeing of the Spanish-speaking community through culturally grounded, evidence-based practices, interventions, education, and capacity building activities. Recognizing that community and culture are the cornerstones of mental and emotional wellness, RdB’s mission is rooted in the values of Spanish-speaking communities.
In this partnership, we work with Raices de Bienestar to build trust, provide culturally specific mental health resources, and destigmatize conversations about mental health in Spanish-speaking communities across Oregon.
The Rosewood Initiative
The residents of the Rosewood neighborhood, on the border of Portland and Gresham, are served by the Rosewood Initiative. By acting as a community resource hub, Rosewood addresses the disparities of opportunities, community safety, and quality of life between the Rosewood neighborhood and other Portland Metro areas. We support the Rosewood Initiative’s programming by learning about the mental health needs and gaps in the neighborhood and connecting residents to a network of culturally responsive behavioral health providers.
Self Enhancement Inc. (SEI)
SEI is dedicated to guiding underserved youth to realize their full potential. Working with schools, families, and partner community organizations, SEI provides support, guidance, and opportunities to achieve personal and academic success. SEI brings hope to individual young people and enhances the quality of community life. Lines for Life continues to work with and support the mission that SEI promotes, this partnership has allowed us to assess the needs of youth of color allowing us to provide culturally responsive trainings and resources.
Urban League of Portland
Learn more about Urban League of Portland