B7 - The Sole Effort of Community Connection

Please click the Play Video button to watch the video prior to joining the Q&A.

Full Description: The Sole Effort of Authentic Community Connection session will cover principles of community engagement to support the work of MCH staff in gaining meaningful community participation in policy and program decisions. This training, which was developed by cross-agency state employees and community partners in Colorado, will outline why meaningful community engagement is key to increasing our ability to be good stewards of public dollars and excel programmatically and professionally. This training was developed because of the lack of knowledge and confidence of state staff to engage in meaningful community engagement. There is an understanding that state government needs to build mutually beneficial relationships with communities to stop the revolving door and create better systems that actually work for families. This training will help embed community engagement into the fabric of our work and create a mindset that values the voices of community. Participants will be provided with a checklist to support community engagement planning, and resources to help guide implementation of principles. Participants will go through a presentation with built-in group engagement activities to help measure their readiness and commitment to community engagement, as well as an activity that highlights community engagement successes and challenges.
This session relates to the theme of “Reflecting on our Past, Shaping our Future” because, historically, including community has not been a common practice, especially in an authentic, mutually-beneficial way. This training aims to reveal the best practices outlined not just by research but by the community themselves. And in order to shape a better future, research states that community voices must be represented. Authentic engagement builds transparent, informed partnership, and trust with the community, increases everyone’s capacity to address the toughest challenges, leads to systems change, and many other benefits. This session supports participants in meeting the MCH block grants requirement of family engagement.
About the facilitator: I play the role of consultant to state and local MCH staff on the MCH program’s Community Inclusion Anchor. I have been a part of publications created around community engagement including, but not limited to, compensation guidance, budgeting for language services, authentic community engagement, and a language services solicitation project. I also facilitate the department’s Community Advisory Board and the MCH youth advisory council, Youth Partnership for Health. Through giving this training, I have learned that it really captures the sole effort of community connection and has opened the door for state staff to engage in authentic community engagement. The fact that numerous stakeholders have been involved in the creation of this training and have ownership of it’s content, speaks volumes.

Abbreviated Description: This session will cover principles of community engagement to support the work of MCH staff in gaining meaningful community participation in policy and program decisions. This training, which was developed by cross-agency state employees and community partners in Colorado, will outline why meaningful community engagement is key to increasing our ability to be good stewards of public dollars and excel programmatically and professionally. There is an understanding that state government needs to build mutually beneficial relationships with communities to stop the revolving door and create better systems that actually work for families. This training will help embed community engagement into the fabric of our work and create a mindset that values the voices of community.