Following up on its July 2025 meeting focused on local health care institutions’ new Community Health Needs Assessments, the Vital Communities Corporate Council met in September to discuss how Upper Valley workplaces could help meet those needs.
Council members brainstormed in small groups about how the Council and its members could respond to the needs that respondents to the health assessments said were their top priorities: safe, affordable housing; affordable, dependable, high-quality child care; protecting youth from drugs and alcohol; and increasing opportunities for and access to recreation and outdoor activity.
The Corporate Council brings together top representatives of locally based employers to listen and respond to the challenges people face. Council members represent more than 12,000 employees, connecting the Council to more than half of the households in our region. Vital Communities is the Council’s convener and administrator, and Vital Communities’ Executive Director is a Council member. Council meetings are every other month.
For safe and affordable housing, an area the Council has already supported through its initiation of the Upper Valley Loan Fund, ideas included:
- Incentivizing developers to invest in housing in rural areas through such measures as tax breaks, reduced dump fees;
- Learning more about people who do not qualify for subsidies but still do not make enough to buy or rent in the Upper Valley;
- Developing more regulations on short-term rentals;
- Addressing the stigma around the label “affordable housing
For affordable, dependable, high-quality child care, which the Council has addressed through an April 2025 seminar on workplace-based child care options and a two-part 2021 symposium that kicked off Vital Communities efforts that include ongoing Farm to Early Childhood Education work, ideas included:
- Council members, especially at the small and medium size, show up at local or state hearings to share the impacts on their workforce and advocate for support or change
- Share stories of the child care pressures on one’s workforce and the impact it is having on one’s business because of parent absenteeism due to lack of availability of care and lack of emergency back-up care
- Advocate for training child care centers on how to work with children with disabilities
For protecting Upper Valley youth from drugs and alcohol, ideas included:
- Partner with local organization to determine what local resources exist
- Offer services for employees that assist not only the employees but their families as well
For increasing opportunities for and access to recreation and outdoor activity, ideas included:
- Support the branded recreation and fitness projects of other corporate council members, such as the Ledyard 5K
- Organize one’s employees to volunteer for a project or organization related to fitness and the outdoors, such as clearing trails for the Upper Valley Trails Alliance
- Look for lesser-known recreational, outdoor events to sponsor
Helping Their Employees
The Council also heard from local organizations who can help workplaces meet their employees’ needs:
- Elizabeth Craib, Co-Executive Director, Resources@Work, which offers services employees can access at their workplace;
- Lori Shibinette, CEO, West Central Behavioral Health, on the resources that organization offers in the workplace for mental health support;
- Nichole Reimer, Executive Director, Granite United Way, on 211 Services & NH Recovery-Friendly Workplaces;
- Lisa Lard, Director of Operations, VT Association for Mental Health & Addiction Recovery;, on their mental health and addiction recovery workplace-based services; and
- Kendra LaRoche, Executive Director, Special Needs Support Center., about their Disibility-Friendly Workplaces initiative
(L-R) Dr. Kelli Perkins and Sarah Jackson of Vital Communities, Dr. Kendra LaRoche of Special Needs Support Center, at the signing of Vital Communities’ Disability-Friendly certification, spring 2025.
These organizations presented a picture of possibilities for workplace-based support in mental health, recovery, disabilities, and the wide range of legal, financial, housing, childcare, and other issues that can hamper employees’ well-being and productivity.
The need is growing. Resources@Work’s Craib said her organization, which provides onsite support for a full range of employees’ life issues, used to work primarily with lower-wage workers. Now they see more middle-wage employees, often struggling with financial issues—and COVID-related setbacks.
“As leaders we have a responsibility to listen to those needs and get our employees help in addressing them,” said Council Chair Jenny Levy, Executive Vice President, People, Community & Environment at Hypertherm. “These are the organizations that can make that happen.”
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