Douglas Public Health Network is pleased to announce that a cross-sector team of leaders in Southern Oregon is about to embark on a year-long leadership training program of the Center for Health Leadership & Practice (CHLP) called the National Leadership Academy for the Public’s Health (NLAPH). The CHLP is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Members of the Collaborative of Southwest Oregon (CSO) are one of ten groups from around the country participating in the NLAPH’s 2020 cohort. The CSO has as a mission to increase community resiliency and improve the overall health and well-being of  residents of Coos, Curry, Douglas, Jackson, and Josephine counties The four members of the CSO participating in the NLAPH’s ninth cohort are Michelle Glass, Policy and Advocacy Coordinator with SO-Health-E, and Director of the Rogue Action Center; Brian Mahoney, Public Health Modernization Program Coordinator with the Douglas Public Health Network (DPHN); Analicia Nicholson, Assistant Superintendent with the Douglas Educational Service District; and Kelly Wessels, Chief Operations Officer for the United Community Action Network (UCAN).

The CSO taking part in the NLAPH’s competitive application process was very intentional.  The 5-county region covered by CSO has some of the poorest health outcomes in Oregon per the County Health Rankings and state data. The NLAPH program provides an opportunity for organizations to work across sectors and to create projects focused on health outcomes rather than outputs. The CSO believes a collective impact approach is the way forward. The challenges include: stakeholder relations; aligning the work of partners; educating sector leadership on the social determinants of health and health equity; and organizing and managing sustained community engagement. Multi-sector partners will focus their collective resources on improving health outcomes and creating prosperous communities. A goal is to create a framework to facilitate cross-sector collaboration over this large rural area.

The collaborative team will focus on the intersection of health, housing, education, and community building. The leadership skills that the team hopes to gain include: developing leadership strategies for improving community health outcomes; developing a stronger network of communication and relationships; learning to develop and lead teams with agile critical systems thinking; communicating and building trust with others in the community; gaining skills to work with elected officials and creating plans they can support; using health equity as a basis for decision making across multiple sectors; identifying and articulating the areas of shared focus across education, public health, social service agencies and community groups; and having a shared definition of health equity for use among the multi-sector partners in Southern Oregon.

The NLAPH program began in 2011 to advance leadership skills and achieve health equity in local communities. The program uses an experiential learning process that includes webinars, a multi-day retreat, coaching support, peer-networking, and an applied population health project. Participation is free for the teams and is funded by the CHLP.