Our Intermountain Community Care Foundation (ICCF) exists to support the health priorities we have identified in our communities, improve access to healthcare services, and increase healthy behaviors for low-income, uninsured, or medically underserved populations in Utah and southern Idaho. Through identifying and supporting existing programs and services that provide access to these populations, we are dedicated to helping people live the healthiest lives possible with our Foundation.

One such program we funded in 2023 is Utah Youth Village to support the Families First program. This program prevents family disruption and ensures parents have the support and skills to create and maintain a safe, stable environment for their children.

One woman, we’ll call Yvonne, was a participant in the Family First program. She is a single mom of four children, ages 3, 7, 12, and a 10-month-old, who suffered from intimate partner violence, substance use disorder, and frequent unemployment. As a result, her children were taken from her custody and placed in the state foster care system against her wishes.

To support Yvonne, a Families First team started teaching her how to both effectively praise and create effective consequences for her children, along with setting healthy boundaries in the home. Eventually, Yvonne reached more than 400 days sober. Today, she works full-time and has been accepted into a culinary program. As a result, she has gained full custody of her children, and her case is being closed with the state.

Her Department of Child and Family Services case worker said, “Without the Families First experience, I don’t know that we would be closing her case out in a matter of months. I don’t know that Yvonne and her kids would be as healthy in their relationships.”

Yvonne and her four children are just one example of the more than 500 families who have completed the program successfully. Our ICCF funding supports programs that improve chronic and preventable outcomes, address social determinants of health, and improve mental well-being, significantly impacting community members like Yvonne and many other families through many funded programs.