MCHB ALL GRANTEE MEETING

Six IOM Teams Present Highlights on

Critical MCH Issues and Recommended Strategies

October 4-7, 2004

TAWARA GOODE: Good morning, everyone. First of all, I’d like to thank the members of the Green Team, the many facilitators and recorders for their efforts. And secondly, while my role here is really to just summarize and share with you the insightful recommendations from the MCH leaders on the Green Team, I would be absolutely remiss if I did not acknowledge the commitment, the authenticity, and the passion with which the Green Team members approached this area. We first began our work around defining diversity, and then really moved into looking at some of those challenges. I am going to report, not necessarily verbatim, but as close as possible in terms of verbatim, because we heard from our team that words really mean a lot to them, and when we began to combine some of the areas, some of those words maybe got lost or misinterpreted. And so I’m going to stay as true as possible to the actual words with which the team put forth their recommendations. For the Green Team, Green Team One, the facilitator was Jose Vilardo, and recorder was Elizabeth Anderson.

The first challenge and recommendation put forth is to develop a workforce that is representative of the community and which has the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to promote a caring partnership and collaborative partnerships. Two recommendations that came forth and proposed strategies were indeed training and also policy development information. In the area of training, they looked at training for existing and for the future workforce. Also, there was clear recommendations regarding government’s role in establishing a core set of competencies, as they relate to cultural and linguistic contents and its role in effect community engagement. We also had a significant recommendation around the pipeline, and really looking at how we need to support the pipeline early on, not just high school but elementary school, so that we can get children interested in the health professions and also match that with the changing and emerging demographic trends that we see within communities. There needs to be resources available to support these training activities, specifically in the area of workforce diversity and development.

There may have been in the PowerPoint a couple things left out, so I want to go back to Green Team One, and also to share with you which you don’t see on the screen right now, the recommendations related to policy development information. There are a couple of things here that were very important. One was that MCHB should require partnerships and meaningful community involvement in the planning, implementation and evaluation of all its funded programs. And clearly, looking at how that flows down from the federal level to the state level, that there should be a translation of this federal policy and to state mandates and guidelines, and as we follow that progression, we’re looking at states being able to implement policy and allocate resources to assure diversity and ongoing professional development within the workforce as it continues to come down to organizational grantee level, the grantee should be really focused on increasing the capacity to develop and implement policy within their own respective organizations as relates to cultural and linguistically competent ways to promote community engagement.

Green Team Two, and the facilitator for Green Team Two is Penny Halsercram, and the recorder was Hei Yung Park . A critical area that was identified here was the lack of a systematic way to fund and support authentic, and that’s a very powerful word, authentic community engagement. Some of the key strategies that were indeed identified include: Identifying key leaders within diverse communities, including Outreach representatives that are reflective of all of the aspects within those communities; of being able to identify incentives to insure full participation of community members, and really looking at that within the context of specific sub-groups. Let’s see: To develop strategies and guidelines for corporate partnerships. Again, an area that may indeed be under-utilized within the MCH arena. And also a recommendation: Consider drawing on Healthy Tomorrow’s model for sustainability in particular; looking at prioritizing expectations and deliverables within funding limitations. And to be able to fund projects for longer in length of time, at appropriate rates, in order to foster authentic collaboration and effective services and qualities.

This was very significant in terms of looking at the time it takes to establish trust within diverse communities. But many of the funding cycles simply don’t lend themselves to that. Almost as soon as you get in the door, it’s time for the funding cycle to be over, and that goes a long way for not establishing a trusting relationships we want within diverse communities. Other recommendations from this group looked at re-evaluating our own beliefs as MCH professionals and to understand that we do not always have to have all the answers. Making funding for community engagement a requirement for all grantees, and improving the ability to communicate funding parameters are mandates to our program constituents. Okay, keep going, all right. We’re going to look at Green Team Three. The facilitator for Green Team Three was Karen Burstein and recorder was Dianna DeBoba. This is a really powerful statement that came from this group: “There’s a mal-distribution of the nation’s abundant resources—“ and so, when we hear discussions that there’s not enough money, this group really challenged that, “--due to discrimination, racism and the other –isms, and a historical lack of political will.”

A very, very powerful statement! This results in the disenfranchisement of diverse MCH populations and the inability to form and sustain effective partnerships. From this group there were a number of recommendations that came forth, and strategies. Increasing awareness of disparities and related issues for disenfranchised groups, for non-traditional partners, and again some of the examples were given were the business community, faith-based organizations and others. Another strategy was to give disenfranchised populations a voice. Quite frankly, those populations have a voice. They have a very strong voice, the extent to which we are able to listen and to act upon what it is that they are telling us. And their messages are always very clear: To establish a state network of MCH grantees to develop collaboration, to share visions and meaningful purposes in ownership of the whole notion of community engagement and working within diverse communities. Another strategy was combine local resources to create grass root messages that support a broader campaign. They’re looking at this broader campaign a larger goal in terms of developing an education and advocacy campaign with a very common message that is indeed appropriately funded but universal comprehensive holistic approach to both individual and community health.

Again, looking at some critical issues, creating a high-quality system of cross-cultural communication for MCH projects and potential partners at all levels, and resolution of those issues, equality and availability.