In 2017, Valley-Wide Health Systems was awarded $225,000 from the Denver Foundation’s Colorado Health Access Fund (CHAF) to support the renovation of the behavioral health sections of the new Cañon City clinic. The clinic at 531 Main St. is scheduled to open in the Spring of 2019.
In 2018, Valley-Wide applied for an additional CHAF grant to support the first two years of salaries for two behavioral health providers, who will begin work with the opening of the fully-integrated clinic. This proposal has been awarded, and will contribute an additional $250,000 for a total of $475,000.
Thanks to this generous support, Valley-Wide will be able to expand access to behavioral health services in Cañon City and the larger Fremont County community.
“This funding is essential to becoming a fully-integrated model with behavioral health services at our new facility in Cañon City,” Marco Antillon, Valley-Wide’s Director of Behavioral Health, explained. “Thank you to the Denver Foundation for their continued generosity and support of our efforts.”
The Colorado Health Access Fund seeks to:
- Reduce and remove barriers for Coloradans with high behavioral health care needs in accessing behavioral health care treatment;
- Build on innovations and investments already in place around behavioral healthcare treatment and support strategies for sustainability within the communities;
- Support treatment solutions that will benefit and meet the needs of the local community, as well as explore how those solutions could be replicated and/or scaled to meet the needs of communities across the state; and
- Widely share solutions and approaches that improve access to behavioral health care treatment, as well as openly convey “lessons learned.”
