275071 Achieving meaningful participation from adult community residents: Lessons from SABHC

Tuesday, October 30, 2012 : 11:30 AM - 11:45 AM

America Bracho, MPH, CDE , Latino Health Access, Santa Ana, CA
In 2011 a geographic area in Santa Ana was selected as one of the 14 low income communities participating in the Building Healthy Communities (BHC) Initiative of the California Endowment, $1 billion, 10-year place-based initiative designed to create transformative community change by improving the physical, social, economic, and service environments. Community participation, resident ownership of the process and community power are elements of the initiative guided by the principle that that the people most impacted by poor health outcomes must be centrally involved in crafting the solutions. In this session the presenter will share how Santa Ana has been able to engage and include adult residents from the Santa Ana Building Healthy Community site. The presenter will highlight the importance of investing in relationships with the community to achieve participation and the role of Promotores in the engagement, recruitment and retention of residents into the initiative. The high participation of adult residents in the SABHC is in great part the result of an aggressive long term engagement combined with a profound respect for adults in our community and relationships of many years. Trust, ownership and clear purpose continue to assure the presence at the table of many resident leaders. In addition, during this session she will discuss the ongoing challenge that represents to build relationships, keep trust, alignment of vision, purpose, process and priorities as new residents associated with a variety of organizations or without any previous association, join the SABHC collaborative during this multiple year strategies.

Learning Objectives:
Explain the process of adult residents engagement in Santa Ana and list key lessons. Discuss the importance of relationships and building trust in engaging adult community residents in community change. Describe how the intensity and required time to build relationships and align residents among themselves and with other players can impact the approved plans and timelines. Discuss how collaborative building, continuous learning, conflict resolution and problem solving are critical in community participation and the process of empowerment.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been involved with community public health strategies for 30 years. I am the Director of Latino Health Access, an organization that for 20 years has been engaging the community, recruiting and hiring people from the community (promotores)so they can engage others, create reciprocal relationships and creating mechanisms for participation so the community itself can be part of the process of changing their own communities.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4095.0: Health Happens Here: Building Community Power and Systems Change for Social and Health Equity in California: A New Public Health Practice for the 21st Century?