Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase
309505
Facilitator vs. Coordinator: Finding Balance in non-traditional academic community partnerships
Monday, November 17, 2014
: 9:30 AM - 9:50 AM
Lillian U. Smith, DrPH, MPH, CHES
,
Director, Office of Practice and Community Engagement and SC Public Health Consortium, University of South Carolina, Arnold School of Public Health, Columbia, SC
As academic-community partnerships seek to implement sustainable projects, academic partners need to adapt their infrastructure and approach to community work accordingly. An example of this is demonstrated through lessons learned in an ongoing academic-community partnership in Kershaw County, South Carolina. In 2010, the hospital organization KershawHealth, sought out the University of South Carolina’s Office of Practice and Community Engagement (PACE) to help facilitate their federally mandated community health needs assessment (CHNA) process. Through an innovative approach, the two organizations combined efforts with Eat Smart Move More Kershaw County, a community transformation grant recipient who was also required to perform a community health assessment. PACE provided technical assistance and support for the countywide CHNA process and tools for building community capacity and engagement while allowing the community to be the leaders and implementers. This project demonstrates how multiple organizations can work towards collective impact in an organic process. This experience highlighted a number of essential elements for academic partners, including: a) the need to develop a fundamental support team for community-based projects comprised of a project coordinator, facilitator, and data manager/evaluator; b) the importance of utilizing an unconventional facilitative role when working with community organizations; and c) the need for the roles and responsibilities of academic partners to evolve accordingly in order to properly support their partners. The lessons learned through this process will be relevant for academic partners seeking to promote sustainable programs and collective impact within communities.
Learning Areas:
Other professions or practice related to public health
Learning Objectives:
Describe key components of the academic partner’s facilitative role in community-academic partnerships
Identify the infrastructure needed in team-based community-academic projects
Keyword(s): Community-Based Partnership & Collaboration, Needs Assessment
Presenting author's disclosure statement:Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a trained Research Associate in the Office of Public Health Practice, at the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health, with practice-based experience in academic-community based work.
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.
