Health Resources in Action (HRiA) looks forward to participating in the NACCHO360 annual conference in Denver, CO on July 10-13, 2023. Hosted by the National Association of County and City Health Officials, NACCHO360 is the only conference that focuses on the challenges and opportunities for local health. This year, we’re sending 10 staff members to learn, connect, and share lessons learned from our work over the past year. Below, you’ll find a list of our team members attending the conference, information on our posters and presentations, and curated content and resources to learn a bit more about us. We hope to see you there!
Presentations
Seizing the opportunity for equitable recovery through the municipal funding decisions
Monday, July 10th, 3:30 – 5:00 PM MT
It’s not enough to simply ask. Funding decisions, like ARPA, give local governments an opportunity to intentionally engage and invest in populations who, because of deliberate institutional policy decisions, are regularly harmed by government budgeting processes. Come learn and share strategies that shift power and create trusting relationships with community.
Practicing What We Preach: An Internal Approach to Advancing Health Equity at a Local Health Department
Wednesday, July 12th, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM MT
When engaging in equity work, health departments should critically examine what foundational elements are in place to facilitate success and mitigate potential harm to and burden on staff. This session will explore how one local health department is working to advance health equity through assessment, planning, and training.
Strengthening the Partnerships that Promote Health Equity and Social Justice – Connecting on the Community Level
John Auerbach, Alice Chen, Bisola Ojikutu, Denise Smith
Wednesday, July 12th, 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM
Genuine and sustained partnerships are needed with trusted organizations within the most affected communities. All too often public health has lacked such partnerships particularly within communities of color. This session will uncover the obstacles, provide lessons from successful efforts and propose ways to increase such partnerships in the future.
Content and Resources
Recent blog posts
The Health Tree Metaphor and the Importance of Shared Language (2023)
The Massachusetts Community Health and Healthy Aging Funds (aka The Funds), a collaboration with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, aims to dismantle systemic and structural racism in communities throughout the Commonwealth. In this piece, readers will learn about the power of creating shared language and how the Funds team developed a tool to help others to do this essential work. Read>>
The ARPA-tunity of a lifetime (2022)
COVID-19 laid bare inequities across the Commonwealth and the country, and ARPA funds are designed to address them. To do this effectively, local government must engage with community groups and residents that have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic to set priorities and make community-driven investments. HRiA is collaborating with communities to support engagement strategies and lift up local examples to learn from and inspire creative, transformative approaches across Massachusetts. Read>>
Community Engagement, Mental Models, and Systems Transformation (2023)
Equitable community engagement takes time, resources, deep listening, self-reflection, power sharing, and trust-building, and our systems are not always set up to facilitate this. Learn about the recently launched Foundations of Community Engagement Toolkit, a free resource that explores mental models and equitable community engagement approaches that help facilitate systems transformation. Read>>
The Full Frame: Widening the Lens on Community Health (2023)
The Community Health Improvement (CHI) process can surface important information and initiate the action needed to create healthy and equitable communities. While most organizations successfully complete their assessments and plans, they often get “stuck” when it comes to prioritization, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. What strategies can your institution use to successfully complete the full cycle of the CHI process? Read>>
Building Power to Achieve Healthier and More Just Communities (2023)
Power lies at the heart of health and racial justice, shaping our society’s structures. It determines access to resources, who makes decisions, who thrives, and who is left behind. To fully understand the implications of power on the health of communities, we’ve developed an in-depth blog series for those working for municipalities and community-based organizations. Our first post introduces the concept of power, the importance of building sustained power within communities, and the example of using federal funding to support community transformation efforts. Read>>
Upcoming Events
UNITY Conference and Annual Meeting of the National Association of Community Health Workers
August 3rd – 5th, 2023
Join Community Health Workers, partners and allies at the preeminent national event to elevate the impact of CHWs.
