Setting Teams Up for Success in Equity: Lessons Learned from Coalitions Charged with Making Their Communities Healthier

The YMCA of the USA has coordinated multiple strategies to create healthier environments nationwide. As part of the Activate America movement, over 200 Ys have participated in ACHIEVE (Action Communities for Health, Innovation and EnVironmental change), Pioneering Healthier Communities (PHC), Statewide Pioneering Healthier Communities, the Gulick Collaborative, and Urban and Educational Development demonstrating impactful organizational, community and policy change. Informed by this work, the PHC Health Equity pilot began in 2010 to implement policy and environmental change in communities of color and low-income. Tools, trainings, models and methods were designed and included based on the learnings from Ys involved in the past and existing initiatives. The pilot builds capacity within the Y and within the communities to apply culturally relevant, sustainable transformations. The framework is based on four key components: empathy, knowing the community through data, finding community voice through community representative leadership, and policy and environmental implementation. Six communities, which had previous policy and environmental change success and a defined need for intervention within their communities, were selected to undergo a three year process to increase healthy eating and physical activity in underserved communities. The success of the pilot and those that informed this work will be presented as a replicable model to strengthen all communities. The model includes a projected timeline, training, technical assistance requirements and leadership needed to position communities for success in making communities more equitable. Local and national perspectives will be discussed to describe the history, current efforts and projected success for the movement.