Through responsive technical assistance and training, PI supports Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) awardees across the country. Currently PI is supporting Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity (DNPAO) awardees that are part of the High Obesity Program (HOP) and State Physical Activity and Nutrition Program. We have also provided services to Community Transformation Grant (CTG) recipients and consulted with CDC’s ACHIEVE communities. Our technical assistance work focuses on equity, multisector partnerships, and community engagement.
Below is a sampling of PI’s work with CDC awardees:
Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity (DNPAO)
PI is supporting DNPAO awardees that are part of the High Obesity Program (HOP) and State Physical Activity and Nutrition Program to promote good nutrition, support safe, accessible physical activity options, and achieve health equity. PI is facilitating a multi-pronged technical assistance and training approach that includes:
- Web-based sessions to communicate successful strategies for building and maintaining multisector coalitions, principles for engaging community leaders, and approaches for analyzing collaborative efforts across fields.
- Tailored trainings and individual coaching with select awardees to hone skills and capacities and support actionable steps toward building effective multisector community coalitions.
- Peer calls with awardees to support a community of practice and create a space to share lessons learned.
- Community snapshots that integrate key lessons from the field and levers for successful multi-sector community coalitions.
REACH- Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan
Prevention Institute was invited to provide consultation to Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan – a non-profit that establishes programs and policies to improve health and wellbeing among Michigan’s tribal communities - to support their REACH Journey to Wellness project. The goal of the REACH Journey to Wellness project was to strengthen the capacity of seven participating tribes and agencies to implement evidence-based strategies, including increasing the number of smoke free environments, improving healthy food and beverage options, advancing physical activity opportunities, and creating newly formed patient panels for community and clinical linkage processes.
Prevention Institute developed and delivered a web-based forum on ways to advance physical activity efforts in tribal communities via policy, systems and environmental (PSE) change. Showcasing key prevention frameworks and upstream oriented examples, the webinar was an opportunity to facilitate a discussion on existing efforts and opportunities to further engage in PSE. PI conducted in-depth key informant interviews with each tribe or agency’s REACH Coordinator to better understand core project successes, challenges, lessons learned, and implications for future directions. PI identified and described key accomplishments, assets, and skills unique to each tribe or agency in each of the profiles, while also integrating linkages between historical trauma and fatalistic beliefs about health that emerged in conversations. As a next step, PI presented key findings and successes gleaned from interviews to REACH Coordinators and facilitated an open discussion to explore opportunities to cultivate cultural and spiritual practices as levers for building community resiliency. PI produced profiles that highlighted effective PSE strategies for advancing chronic disease prevention efforts, and demonstrated that the implementation of strategies for community healing from community trauma is vital for creating healthier tribal communities.
Building from the momentum and experience working with Inter-Tribal Council communities, Prevention Institute conducted a follow-up training during a REACH coordinators meeting in 2018. The meeting convened all seven of the tribes that the PI team worked with previously. This interactive training with REACH coordinators highlighted tools and resources—including THRIVE—that deepened individual’s understanding of addressing community determinants of health through comprehensive approaches. Each person learned about multi-sector strategies to advance policy, systems and environmental change (PSE) efforts utilizing the Spectrum of Prevention. REACH coordinators had the opportunity to practice using the based around the REACH strategic priorities, which will help move REACH coordinators beyond individual level approaches to integrate PSE change strategies more effectively.
PICH- The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
PI provided consultation to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, core staff of the Partnership for a Healthier Manhattan, and key partners to support lead conveners in developing an effective, action-driven collaborative. In August of 2016, Prevention Institute staff worked with the collaborative -- Healthy Food for Upper Manhattan (HFUM) -- to conduct key informant interviews with select HFUM members to better understand members’ experience, interest, and capacity for coalition efforts related to HFUM. Based on these interviews, PI was able to identify opportunities for success, areas of challenges to address, and key aspects of the workgroup’s dynamics and priorities that were explored with the group during two subsequent action planning sessions.
During the first action planning session, PI shared major themes and findings from interviews and surveys that members completed, using this session as an opportunity to unpackage ‘the tough questions’ that were emerging for members. PI facilitated a discussion on the vision and structure of HFUM guided by PI's resource, Eight Steps to Effective Coalition Building, and participants started to develop draft goals and objectives for the workgroup. PI collected responses from participants and worked with lead conveners in the weeks to follow to develop a working purpose statement that reflected the group’s interests and provided a foundation for developing a comprehensive set of goals and activities. In session two, Prevention Institute worked with HFUM to start moving from vision to action – supporting members in brainstorming a set of action oriented food goals, and connected food-related priorities with community prevention strategies. These sessions and ongoing coaching PI provided the Partnership and key partners supported HFUM members in developing a purpose and vision, refining goals, and creating levers for action and shared responsibility that has moved the group forward.
National Implementation and Dissemination for Chronic Disease Prevention – American Planning Association
Prevention Institute partnered with the American Planning Association (APA) in 2016-2017 to develop and deliver a 6 month web-based training series for planning professionals and their public health partners working on strengthening healthy communities efforts. Designed to support leadership development and institutionalize health equity practice for professionals in land use and planning, this series targeted state and local chapter members of APA to advance their efforts to support – and lead- healthy communities efforts. Open to APA members and their local partners, this training series regularly received 200+ participants per session and addressed Data and Metrics for Health Equity, Collaboration and Collective Action for Prevention, Communications and Framing for Healthy Communities, and Sustainability.