By Grace Grinager, Cook County Public Health and Human Services (PHHS) Director 

 

“Thrive Together,” a new Cook County Resource Guide website, is now live! This site serves as a one-stop shop for all the essential services and support available in our expansive and vibrant community. Its mission is to connect every Cook County resident with the local resources they need to lead healthier, more informed, and connected lives. The site is available at “thriveccmn.org” and is accessible on desktop and mobile devices.   

 

While the site will be administered by Cook County PHHS, the resource guide is the result of collaboration among multiple agencies across Cook County, including Care Partners, PHHS, Grand Portage Health Services, North Shore Health, and Sawtooth Mountain Clinic.  

 

Following the COVID-19 pandemic and an external Health Care Assessment, all of us noticed that many people in the community often aren’t aware of the full range of resources available to them locally. While each agency has its own website and outreach, there hasn’t been a comprehensive, shared resource- until now. We hope individuals and organizations alike will use this guide as an easy place to point people who are looking for support or just to better understand the services here in our community. The funding for the website came entirely through a federal COVID-19 Recovery Grant received by PHHS.   

 

The Thrive Together site was developed with a core team including myself; PHHS Case Aide/Office Support Specialist staff Betsy Blaisdell; Sawtooth Mountain Clinic Outreach Coordinator Liv Thompson; and Public Information Coordinator for both Cook County and North Shore Health, Danielle Hefferan. We began by compiling listings from PHHS’s longstanding paper/PDF resource guide. From there, we worked with partners at Care Partners, North Shore Health, Grand Portage Health and Human Services, and the PHHS staff to expand and refine the listings. Local photographers, Paul Sundberg and David Johnson, helped bring the site to life with images from across the county, and website development firm AndiSites, known for creating similar resource guides, pulled everything together into a beautiful, easy-to-navigate platform. We are deeply grateful for this collaborative effort.

 

The guide includes health-promoting resources across a wide variety of categories. This broad scope is intentional, reflecting the understanding that both physical and mental health are shaped not only by access to healthcare, but also by access to food, housing, transportation, community programs, services, and events. In particular, the “Healthy Communities” category of the website links to many services that might not be thought of as “health-related,” but absolutely can support our well-being as both individuals and as a community.  These include links to community calendars, places to find local news, parks, and more. 

 

The site has multiple search features as well as the ability to print directions to each listing from the user’s location or another specific address.  It also has a “contact us” form where people can provide feedback on the site, make corrections to a listing, or suggest that a listing be added. Our goal is for this site to remain an adaptable, living guide that reflects the health and well-being needs in Cook County. Erika Ternes, PHHS Executive Administrative Assistant, will be maintaining the site. 

 

Now that the site is live, our focus is to let people know.  We’ll be rolling out an outreach campaign over the summer and into the fall to make sure as many people as possible know about the site and can try it out.  

 

I encourage both newcomers and long-time residents of Cook County to take some time to explore the site!  You never know what kinds of new resources you’ll learn about.  Please help us spread the word and let your family, friends, and neighbors know about it too. The goal of “Thrive Together” is to build our knowledge of resources so that the community can more easily connect to the services they need to thrive, right here at home.