HRSA/MCHB 2005 FEDERAL/STATE PARTNERSHIP MEETING

PUBLIC HEALTH ACROSS THE LIFESPAN

Title V and Adolescent Health

PATRICIA SNODGRASS: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Patty Snodgrass. I'm the director of the Adolescent Health Initiative in West Virginia. As Kristin mentioned, we have started the process of utilizing the tool and we're very excited about that.

The West Virginia Adolescent Health Initiative is administered by the Infant Child and Adolescent Health Division Office of Maternal Child and Family Health in the Bureau for Public Health under the Department of Health and Human Resources.

Formal work with the initiative began in 1988. So we've been involved in adolescent health for quite some time now. That was the vision of Pat Moss, the director of the Office of Maternal Child and Family Health. And in 1993, the Adolescent Health Initiative adopted the asset approach developed by Search Institute as its foundation piece.

We fund through our office a dedicated network of eight regional adolescent health coordinators who work across the state of West Virginia. So this is really a state model. You can see on the map that there are a number of people, and I've tried to color code it so you can see. I hope that you can tell the difference that exists there within those counties.

The framework is based upon a youth development approach, which is holistic. The initial focus is on protective factors, promoting resiliency, and we collaborate with other regional network partners to address reduction of risk behaviors. And this schematic basically shows you that there are a number of networks that operate within the state of West Virginia designed specifically around addressing health issues related to adolescents.

We partner with a lot of these folks that you see around this wheel to do many, many activities across our state.

AHI provides information, education and technical assistance to youth, parents, teachers, other regional networks, healthcare professionals and community groups. And the overall goal is to have asset rich communities and improving health indicators for youth.

Key documents that we utilize with the AHI are the Conceptual Framework for Adolescent Health, which has been mentioned previously. Healthy People 2010, the 21 critical objectives. We use also an asset approach to positive community change, which is a Search Institute product. Improving the health of adolescents and young adults, the guide that Kristin just mentioned and the ten essential public health services and some of those pieces are up here on a front table if you're interested in looking at those after the session.

AHI conducted the assessment using the system capacity for adolescent health public improvement tool in July of 2005. So this is really very new. We looked at three areas initially, commitment, partnerships and technical assistance. Kristin came to our state, was gracious in helping us facilitate this process, as did Rina Large, previously with AMCHP but now with Grant Makers for Children Youth and Families. Again, our process was an adaptation. That's the thing that I think is so great about this tool, is that it allows each of you in your states to adapt it to meet your specific needs. And I think that's really something that's wonderful about it.

The regional network representatives participated. So all of those folks that you saw in that wheel earlier in the presentation as I've been talking about that were there around the table. So it was a large group of people that we brought together to do this. We did an assessment of each key capacity area, including the discussion questions, explored elements of each capacity area, did the SWAT analysis and identified key issues and priorities with a rating for each capacity area.

And kind of just giving you a snapshot of some of the things we're teasing out at this point in time because we're just now bringing this product to a draft form, we'll finalize that and then prioritize those things. Next move into a strategic plan and an action plan which will drive what we do in the future.

The capacity area commitment we looked at development and adoption of an overarching framework on adolescent health that spans all adolescent health focus programs. Again, that came out of a rich discussion that we had with the people who were there around the table.

Collaboratively identifying and focusing attention on three to four adolescent health issues we need to work on and that our partners are willing to come to the table around.

Providing capacity area partnership. We looked at providing informal and formal opportunities for adolescent health focused networks across public health agencies. We're looking there to increase the knowledge base, expand our partnerships and, of course, collaborate more effectively, and strengthen communication efforts across regional youth focused networks. There we're looking at developing a list serve and message board. When we have new coordinators who come on board with any of those specific network partners that were mentioned, we're really able to welcome those people, able to share information in a much easier fashion with one another.

We also looked at the capacity of technical assistance, development of a systemic, systematic method to reach out to state and local media in order to raise public awareness and visibility. And we want to include adolescent health resources within DHHR and all adolescent focused partners in the statewide 211 information referral system.

We have some priorities that were identified out of a recent needs assessment that we did to decrease the incidence of fatal accidents caused by drinking and driving, percentage of adolescents who wear seatbelts, reduce accidental deaths and then assure that children and families have access and actually utilize.

Our next steps, we're going to finalize the document, prioritize the key elements and develop an action plan and new deliverables for grants or agreements. So that's sort of where we're at. We do have a website. I invite all of you to come and take a look at it. And that's it. Thank you.