1. Engage Partners

1. Engage Partners

Introduction

On Your Mark: Start Here with Grounding Concepts and the Evidence Base

Essential in conducting the needs assessment is to engage community partners early on and throughout the process. Title V agencies need strong partnerships and effective coalitions to assist in all remaining eight steps of the process. It is expected that MCH programs will have ongoing communication with partners throughout the needs assessment process and continue to engage with such partners during interim reporting years.

Partners can help to identify the full scope of need, interpret available data or collect new data, sort our priorities, identify and select solutions, build consensus, advocate for needed changes and support overall efforts.

Importance of Engaging Partners

Engaging community partners in the five-year needs assessment is essential to:

  • Ensure that the assessment is comprehensive and representative of the community. Partners from different sectors and with different perspectives can provide valuable insights into the community's health needs.
  • Build community ownership and support for the assessment and its findings. When partners feel involved in the process, they are more likely to trust and accept the results.
  • Identify potential partners and resources for addressing the community's health needs. Partners can help to develop and implement interventions that are tailored to the specific needs of the community.

Barriers to Engaging Partners

There are a number of barriers that can make it difficult to engage partners in the five-year needs assessment. These include:

  • Time and resource constraints. Engaging partners takes time and resources, which may be limited for Title V agencies and other organizations.
  • Lack of awareness. Some partners may not be aware of the needs assessment process or its importance. Others may be reluctant to participate due to concerns about confidentiality or lack of trust in government or other organizations.
  • Language and cultural barriers. Partners may speak different languages or have different cultural backgrounds, which can make it difficult to communicate and engage with them effectively.
  • Power dynamics. Partners may have different levels of power and influence, which can create challenges for ensuring that all voices are heard and valued.

The MCH Evidence Center has reviewed the literature to find strategies for engaging community partners. Note that the research literature uses the term "stakeholders" at the current moment, although common usage reflects the more inclusive term "community partners":

Learn What Works

Get Ready: Immerse Yourself in Effective Strategies and Learn More

There are a number of strategies that can be used to involve community partners in the five-year needs assessment in an equitable manner. These include:

  • Identifying and prioritizing all partners. It is important to identify and prioritize all partners, including those who are most marginalized or underrepresented. This may require outreach to diverse community organizations and groups.
  • Creating opportunities for meaningful participation. Partners should have meaningful opportunities to participate in the needs assessment process, from defining the scope of the assessment to developing and implementing recommendations. This may involve using a variety of engagement methods, such as focus groups, surveys, and community meetings.
  • Providing accessible information. Partners should have access to clear and concise information about the needs assessment process, its purpose, and how they can participate. This information should be available in multiple languages and formats, as needed.
  • Building trust and relationships. It is important to build trust and relationships with partners throughout the needs assessment process. This can be done by being transparent and responsive to partner feedback, and by honoring the time and expertise that partners contribute.

Here are some specific strategies for engaging organizations led by people with lived experience:

  • Identify and reach out to organizations led by people with lived experience in the community. This can be done through networking, online searches, and word-of-mouth.
  • Build relationships with leaders of organizations led by people with lived experience. This can be done by attending their events, volunteering with their organizations, and meeting with them individually.
  • Provide organizations led by people with lived experience with opportunities to participate in the needs assessment process. This can be done by inviting them to join the steering committee, conducting interviews with their members, or hosting focus groups with their clients.
  • Support organizations led by people with lived experience in their efforts to address the community's health needs. This can be done by providing them with funding, technical assistance, or other resources.

By taking these steps, Title V agencies can help ensure that all partners have an opportunity to participate in the needs assessment process and that their voices are heard.

These trainings have been collected by the MCH Navigator:

Tools to Try

Get Set: Use these Tools to Move from Knowledge to Implementation

These tools and examples have been developed by the National MCH Workforce Development Center or collected by the MCH Digital Library:

These resources have been collected by the MCH Digital Library:

Title V Tools and Examples

Go: Learn from Your Peers Across the Country

Tools

These tools have been collected by AMCHP and the MCH Evidence Center:

  • California: Introduction to Needs Assessment and Engaging Stakeholders. California Title V partnered with the University of California, San Francisco's Family Health Outcomes Project to develop this webinar and introductory resources.
  • Colorado: Needs Assessment Design Overview Visual. Colorado has used a visual such as this one in multiple assessments to organize and communicate about the design of the MCH Needs Assessment. It helps partners understand all of the elements of the assessment as well as the general timeline.
  • Oregon: Partner Voices Key Questions. These are the key questions that were used in a survey of partners in Oregon, to both gather information and to engage partners in the work. The modes of data collection included an online survey of partners, listening sessions with key stakeholders, discussions with core partners including local health departments and tribes, and regional listening sessions with community organizations and agencies.
  • Oregon: Youth Engagement on Surveillance and Assessment Tools. As part of Oregon’s effort to design better assessment and surveillance tools, Title V engaged youth in focus groups, surveys, and informational interviews to find out what health topics are most important to them, whether or not the survey speaks to those topics, and how the state can better design assessment to speak to their needs and strengths.
  • New Mexico’s Title V CYSHCN Program: Using the National Standards as a Framework for Educating Stakeholders. For an increased understanding of how Title V programs are implementing the National Standards for Systems of Care for CYSHCN, this case study offer strategies and best practices for replication.

Stories and Strategies for Peer-to-Peer Learning

These stories and strategies have been collected by AMCHP and the MCH Evidence Center related to Step 1:

  • Oregon Key Stakeholder Panel Discussion for Needs Assessment Specific to Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs. OCCYSHN invited professionals representing a wide range of organizations and institutions that serve CYSHCN (e.g., Coordinated Care Organizations, pediatric provider member organizations, county Developmental Disability, providers that serve CYSHCN) and representatives of families of CYSHCN to participate in a facilitated discussion on December 10, 2014. The discussion focused on the needs of CYSHCN and the capacity of Oregon’s system of services to address those needs. Participants also recommended priority areas of focus for OCCYSHN for the next 5 years. We included these recommendations in our priority area data tools used for our state prioritization process. Contact Alison Martin at [email protected], 503-494-5435 for information.
  • Oregon: Contracts for Culturally Responsive Data Collection
    The mission of the Oregon Center for Children and Youth with Special Health Needs (OCCYSHN) is to improve the health, development, and well-being of all Oregon’s CYSHCN. Understanding the experiences and needs of all CYSHCN and their families, including those of non-dominant race/ethnicities, is essential to achieving this mission. Limited data exist that describe the Oregon CYSHCN population generally; data are even more limited if a child is a member of community of color. For example, generalizable data for the percentage of Oregon CYSHCN who identify as Black do not exist. Family members who responded to OCCYSHN’s 2015 needs assessment surveys were overwhelmingly Caucasian (77%) and relatively well-educated (46% reported a Bachelor’s degree or higher). In an effort to learn more about subgroups of CYSHCN about which less is known, OCCYSHN is contracting with culturally-specific organizations to conduct culturally responsive data collections with families of CYSHCN in the communities they serve. They will share information gleaned, and work with OCCYSHN on effective strategies to better serve those communities. These example Request for Proposals (RFPs) can serve as examples of how to seek organizations to co-develop culturally-appropriate surveys:
  • Ohio: As a partner, I am seeing how we need to help be more of a go-between for Ohio's MCH. We are a step closer to some partners. As we were tasked with the need assessment, we then only administered surveys via email to our schools and optometrist partners, and would like to see more engagement in the future.

 

Share iconShare Your Stories and Strategies

Please take a moment to share your stories and strategies related to Step 1 of your needs assessment that you would like highlighted on this page. By sharing your stories, you help to document the needs assessment process for use by other Title V agencies during this cycle and will help preserve this knowledge for needs assessment processes in the future.

Share your stories and strategies here.