At a Glance
- Who: Any organization working on immigrant health access in California. Respond on your own or with partners.
- What: A structured, full-day working session organized around a single question: How might we build trusted pathways to care that help immigrant communities access and stay engaged in health care?
- How: A short Expression of Interest. Six questions, about 900 words total.
- When: Opens September 17. Closes October 16 at 5 PM PT.
- Office hours: Bring your questions. September 28 at 9 AM PT and October 9 at 9 AM PT.
- What happens next: CCI reads every response and follows up with conversations. What we learn informs where and how the work might unfold.
Overview
Immigrant communities across California are losing coverage and losing trust at the same time. State and federal changes are narrowing who qualifies for Medi-Cal, and enforcement activity is keeping people away from clinics. At most risk are adults with unsatisfactory immigration status, who gained full-scope Medi-Cal only recently and now face new limits on it.
The Center for Care Innovations (CCI) is committed to supporting improved access to care for immigrant community members. As a first step, we plan to bring cross-sector partners together in up to five California regions for a full day of structured, hands-on problem solving. We call these Idea Labs. Each one is organized around a single question: How might we build trusted pathways to care that help immigrant communities access and stay engaged in health care? Participants validate the main barriers in their region, develop shared strategies, and begin building something that outlasts the current crisis.
We're using this brief Expression of Interest to learn where there is appetite, readiness, and the greatest opportunity for impact. Please share how a convening could be of value in your region, which barriers need the most attention, and where you see momentum. We'll follow up with conversations, and what we learn will inform where and how the work might unfold.
About CCI
CCI has worked alongside California's safety net since 1999, through the rise of electronic health records, the Affordable Care Act, the COVID-19 pandemic, and now the arrival of artificial intelligence. Through every transformation, our role has stayed consistent: strengthen the organizations and people doing the work, help good ideas travel, and connect a field that too often has to figure things out alone.
About Idea Labs
An Idea Lab is one of CCI’s signature ways of working. Some of it is method: human-centered design, which starts from the lived experience of the people a system is meant to serve, and systems thinking, which looks at how organizations, policies, and relationships interact to produce the outcomes we see. Just as much of it is practice: building the trust it takes for people to be honest about what is difficult, composing a room so the right people are in it, and creating conditions where people can step back from the day-to-day long enough to imagine something new. We have used this approach across many programs to help safety net organizations move from describing a problem to testing a solution.
- What comes before it. Ahead of each Idea Lab, CCI spends several weeks in the region talking with stakeholders across sectors. We are gathering inputs and building momentum at the same time: learning about the barriers, what is working, and who needs to be in the room, and getting people ready to collaborate. By the day itself, we arrive with a clear focus on the region's challenges, so participants spend less time establishing the problem and more time on what to do about it.
- The day itself. A structured, full-day working session with 40 to 60 people: safety net providers, community-based organizations, promotores and community health worker networks, immigrant rights groups, legal services organizations, managed care plans, philanthropy, and immigrant community members with lived experience navigating care. These are hands-on sessions where people move, make things, and join forces with others they might not normally be in a room with. When people with different vantage points work together, the ideas get more inventive than anything one sector could design alone. The day closes with participants naming the work they're drawn to and the people they'd want alongside them. CCI documents the priorities, ideas, and commitments that surface and shares them with all participants.
- Why get involved. An Idea Lab is a chance to shape what comes next for immigrant health in your region. Participants inform the development of future strategies and initiatives to serve immigrant populations and build a better health care system for all. They will share their expertise and lessons learned, as well as connect with local leaders across sectors who share the same commitment. CCI's job is to help a region move from talking to action: where mobilization efforts already exist, we build on them rather than duplicate them; where they don't, we help the right people find each other. We bring methods and tools that open up new ways of thinking, so people can step out of their usual patterns, imagine what is possible, and leave with something concrete to test.
- There is no cost to participate. CCI covers the venue, food, materials, and facilitation for each Idea Lab. We also budget for stipends, interpretation and travel to ensure that everyone who needs to be in the room has a chance to participate, especially people with lived expertise in immigrant communities. CCI is lining up funding partners, and the pace and sequence of the work will follow what we secure.
- After an Idea Lab. Teams that form at an Idea Lab have the possibility of moving into an Accelerator, with funding, coaching, and peer support to pilot what they started designing. We'll share more about the Accelerator as details are confirmed.
Who Should Respond
Any California organization working on access to care for immigrant communities. That includes:
- Community health centers and regional consortia
- Community-based and grassroots organizations serving immigrant communities, including promotores networks and mutual aid groups
- Immigrant rights groups
- Legal services organizations, including medical-legal partnerships
- Managed care plans
- County agencies and public health systems
- Local and regional funders
We're looking for regions with at least one trusted local organization willing to serve as an anchor. The anchor helps CCI understand who should be in the room and who is missing, co-hosts or opens the day, and serves as the local point of contact for follow-up after an Idea Lab. We expect it to take a few hours a month during planning and somewhat less afterward. The anchor may be your organization or one you identify.
On regions. A region is whatever unit makes sense where you are: a county, a cluster of counties, a Service Planning Area, or a footprint defined by a shared managed care plan or overlapping clinic service areas. You define the boundary and explain why it is the right one.
On multiple submissions. Regions may submit more than one response. If several organizations in your region are interested, submit together or separately. We'll connect the dots.
Timeline
- September 17: Expression of Interest opens
- September 28 at 9 AM PT: Register for office hours
- October 9 at 9 AM PT: Register for office hours
- October 16 at 5 PM PT: Expression of Interest closes
- Late October onward: CCI reviews responses and begins follow-up conversations.
How We'll Decide
Responses will be considered alongside follow-up conversations. Bring your questions to office hours. We'll post
an FAQ afterward for anyone who can't attend.
A Note on Safety and Discretion
This is sensitive work, and the current environment is volatile. CCI will not publicly share who submitted an Expression of Interest or what they told us. We will not ask about the immigration status of any individual. The same commitment to discretion applies to the Idea Labs themselves.
Questions?