A Snatch of the Beginning Story of a Rural Community Trans-Agency Collaboration Addressing Pediatric Chronic Disease Management in Rural and Medically Underserved Georgia

Successful trans-agency community partnerships build community capacity for addressing health equity. The Center for Children and Family Health and Wellness, the only such entity in Bulloch County, began as a coalition of partners who sought to address children’s health specifically. No other so focused organizations existed and the need was great. Starting as the PEACH Coalition (Promoting Environments that Advance Children’s Health) in April 2012, public health professionals, academics, local pediatricians, school nurses, free or reduce cost clinic administrators, Head Start officials, community members and other stakeholders met regularly to frame the work of the Coalition guided by the socio-ecological model for health promotion and community-based participatory research.

The PEACH Coalition was incorporated with Georgia to facilitate grantsmanship and independence. We developed operating norms, mission, vision and value statements, goals, and conceptual model to guide our work. Two fundamental goals include to “build community level potential for systems change through engaging local health providers and policy makers in children and family health equity efforts”, and to “build community and stakeholder capacity to understand and participate in building health equity using culturally, linguistically and literacy appropriate strategies including community-led outreach, health promotion, and community-driven activities.” Our activities occur through, for example, community-level task forces, seed grants, capacity building through trainings, webinar series on pediatric chronic disease prevention, and community needs assessments.

Our presentation will outline the history of our work, our successes and challenges and how pediatric chronic disease prevention, treatment and management is being promoted in the county.