CCPH - Partnership Matters Newsletter

Communities across the country are using Unnatural Causes, a 7-part documentary series exploring racial and socioeconomic inequalities in health, as a tool for community education, organizing and advocacy. Those attending CCPH’s 10^th anniversary conference last year in Toronto got a “sneak preview” of the series. The series website, http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/, has a wealth of resources including toolkits for discussion, policy and media advocacy at http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/download_toolkit.php. Some materials are also in Spanish.

San Francisco State University and Community Health Works are offering an online Continuing Education (CE) activity corresponding with the series, with CE credits co-provided by the American Public Health Association. The CE activity can easily be done from a home or work computer. The four-hour series can be viewed online and at your own pace. The activity costs $50 per person (up to 4 CE credits can be earned for this price). Learn more at visit http://cel.sfsu.edu/unnaturalcauses or contact Project Coordinator, Alycia Shada, at ashada@sfsu.edu or 415.272.0003.

NEW SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR APPOINTED AT CIHR

INSTITUTE OF POPULATION AND PUBLIC HEALTH

Dr. Pierre Chartrand, Acting President of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), along with CIHR's Governing Council, has announced the appointment of Dr. Nancy Edwards as incoming Scientific Director of CIHR's Institute of Population and Public Health (IPPH). This appointment is effective July 1, 2008.

"Dr. Edwards is a welcome addition to the CIHR leadership team," said Dr. Chartrand. "Her accomplishments in the field of public health research in Canada and internationally will build upon the solid foundation created by the Institute of Population and Public Health over the last seven years."

Nancy Edwards is a Professor in the School of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, and the Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine at the University of Ottawa. Dr. Edwards is also Senior Scientist at the Institute of Population Health and Elisabeth Bruyère Research Institute, and Academic Consultant for the City of Ottawa's Public Health Services. She was the inaugural Director of the Population Health PhD program at the University of Ottawa and currently holds a Chair in Nursing funded by the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Government of Ontario. Over the years, Dr. Edwards has been appointed to a variety of board positions in Canada and internationally.

"I am honoured and delighted to have this opportunity to serve the population and public health research community," said Dr. Edwards. "I look forward to working with the other Scientific Directors, the CIHR team, and all the Institute of Population and Public Health stakeholders and partners to drive forward the programs that will allow Canada to advance its research and innovation agenda for the benefit of Canadians. By working together, we can build upon the outstanding foundations set by Dr. John Frank, the Institute's inaugural Scientific Director."

Through her research in the fields of falls prevention, maternal and child health, tobacco control and HIV and AIDS, Dr. Nancy Edwards has contributed many insights to the design and evaluation of complex community health programs. Her work has spanned four continents. She is presently the lead investigator on a research project in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean to strengthen local health systems for HIV and AIDS. Dr. Edwards has contributed to over 115 peer-reviewed and 100 technical publications and presented nearly 300 conference papers. In 1997, she received the Tianjin Hai He award from the Tianjin Municipal Government in China for outstanding contributions by a foreign professor. In honor of her contributions to "long-term changes in policy and practice" the Mayor of the City of Ottawa proclaimed "Nancy Edwards" Day in 2006. In 2007, she received the University of Ottawa Research Excellence Award and became a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. She is the recipient of the 2007-2008 University of Ottawa Distinguished Professor award.

"I would like to thank Dr. Frank for his extraordinary leadership and vision in establishing the Institute of Population and Public Health," added Dr. Chartrand. "Over the past seven years, Dr. Frank has brought a new energy to the population and public health research endeavour. John's sound scientific advice contributed to establishing the Public Health Agency of Canada, creating six national Collaborating Centres for Public Health. John did his work with rigour, enthusiasm, a collegial and inclusive approach, and a unique sense of humour."

"After seven years as inaugural Scientific Director for IPPH, I can say it has been the best job I ever had," said Dr. John Frank. "As I prepare to hand over the reins of the Institute to the next Scientific Director, I am proud to see that since 2001, the Institute has been able to take an active part in the substantial re-structuring of public health in Canada. As of July of this year, I will be taking on new challenges as the Director of a new Medical Research Council Unit on Public Health Research and Policy in Edinburgh."

CIHR is comprised of 13 Institutes, each led by a Scientific Director responsible for championing health research at the highest levels of international excellence, establishing and nurturing partnerships, as well as fostering effective communication and knowledge dissemination.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the Government of Canada's agency for health research. CIHR's mission is to create new scientific knowledge and to catalyze its translation into improved health, more effective health services and products, and a strengthened Canadian health-care system. Composed of 13 Institutes, CIHR provides leadership and support to more than 11,000 health researchers and trainees across Canada. www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca

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Sarena Seifer

MESSAGE FROM OUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Greetings from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where I am attending the Community-Engaged Scholarship Faculty Development Charrette that concludes here today. Mainly used in architecture, urban planning and community design projects, a charrette is an intensely focused multi-day session that uses a collaborative approach to create realistic and achievable designs. In this case, teams from 20 colleges and universities across the United States – selected from among over 100 applications – have convened to design innovative, competency-based, campus-wide approaches to developing community-engaged faculty members.

The charrette is a component of Faculty for the Engaged Campus (FEC) an initiative of CCPH in partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) and the University of Minnesota (UMN). FEC aims to strengthen community-engaged career paths in the academy by developing innovative competency-based models of faculty development, facilitating peer review and dissemination of products of community-engaged scholarship, and supporting community-engaged faculty through the promotion and tenure process. The three-year effort is supported in part by a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) in the U.S. Department of Education.

The goals of the charrette are to:

Provide a forum for discussion of professional development for those who seek community-engaged careers in the academy
Develop models for faculty development that can be piloted and shared
Establish network of institutions interested in continued discussion and advancement of faculty development in community-engaged scholarship

Leading the charrette planning team is Lynn Blanchard, Director of the Carolina Center for Public Service at UNC-CH and FEC Co-Director. Team members include: Cathy Burack, Senior Fellow for Higher Education at the Center for Youth and Communities at the Heller School of Social Policy at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA; Elmer Freeman, Executive Director of the Center for Community Health, Education, Research and Service in Boston, MA; Susan Gust, community activist in Minneapolis, MN; Bobby Hackett, Vice President of the Corella & Bertram F. Bonner Foundation in Princeton, NJ; FEC Co-Director Cathy Jordan, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Neurology and Executive Director of the Children, Youth and Family Consortium at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis; FEC Evaluator Sherril Gelmon, Professor of Public Health at the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University in Oregon; Lorilee Sandmann, Associate Professor in the Department of Lifelong Education, Administration and Policy, College of Education, University of Georgia in Athens, GA; and Lucille Webb, Founding Member and President of Strengthening the Black Family, Inc. in Raleigh, NC.

This is the second FIPSE grant awarded to CCPH to advance community-engaged scholarship. The first, from 2004-2007, supported the Community-Engaged Scholarship for Health Collaborative, a group of institutions that worked to align their promotion and tenure systems with community-engaged scholarship. The Collaborative’s findings and lessons learned will be published later this year as a theme issue of Metropolitan Universities, the journal of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities.

A number of products from the FIPSE-funded Collaborative have been incorporated into the charrette:

A modified version of a tool developed for the Collaborative, “Building Capacity for Community Engagement: Institutional Self-Assessment” was completed by each team as a pre-charrette homework assignment. Teams also completed a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis in preparation for the charrette.

Competencies for community-engaged scholarship that can guide the design of faculty development programs. Charrette participants reviewed the competencies and considered how to prepare faculty members to achieve them. For example, what content to cover, what teaching and learning strategies to use, what program components to include, and what roles community partners would play.

The Community-Engaged Scholarship Review, Promotion & Tenure Package, a resource and guide for community-engaged scholars and Review, Promotion and Tenure (RPT) committees. The package describes 8 characteristics of quality community-engaged scholarship, and includes a dossier that shows how a community-engaged scholar may present his or her work to RPT committees. An “answer key” evaluates how well the dossier conveyed and documented each of the 8 characteristics and provides some recommendations for improvement. The dossier and answer key works well as part of a group exercise simulating an RPT committee process that is included in the package.

This morning, the teams present their action plans for feedback from their peers, using a structured “critical friends” process . (For more information about the “critical friends” process, click here). Upon their return home, teams will be eligible to apply for FIPSE grant funds through CCPH to implement and evaluate their faculty development designs.

Faculty for the Engaged Campus is one of a growing number of national initiatives that is working to build an academic culture that embraces community-engaged scholarship as a core purpose. Just this week, for example, Imagining America, a national consortium of colleges and universities committed to public scholarship in the arts, humanities, and design, released a report from its Tenure Team Initiative entitled "Scholarship In Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure Policy In the Engaged University.” The report’s recommendations mirror those of the Kellogg Commission on Community-Engaged Scholarship in the Health Professions' 2005 report, "Linking Scholarship and Communities”.

As this article goes to print, leaders of these national initiatives are discussing ways to link our efforts for greater impact. In the meantime, please let us know of any parallel efforts or innovations you’re aware of in faculty recruitment, promotion, tenure and development that we can share through the CCPH network. Contact us at fipse2@u.washington.edu or post information directly on the Community-Engaged Scholarship electronic discussion group at https://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/comm-engagedscholarship

For more information about Faculty for the Engaged Campus, including a list of the institutions selected to participate in the charrette, visit http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/faculty-engaged.html

For more information about the Community-Engaged Scholarship for Health Collaborative, visit http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/healthcollab.html

For additional resources on community-engaged scholarship (CES), visit these pages on the CCPH website:

Commission on CES in the Health Professions: http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/kellogg3.html

CES Toolkit: http://www.communityengagedscholarship.info

CES Resources: http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/scholarship.html

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NEWS FROM CCPH

Community Partner Educational Conference Call Series

CCPH and the Community Partner Workgroups are sponsoring an educational conference call series that cover key topics in community-based participatory research. All calls take place from 3:00-4:30 pm Eastern Time and are free of charge for those dialing in from Canada and the US. We especially encourage participation from community members and their academic/institutional partners, but all who are interested in these issues may join in. The first call, entitled “Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) as a Strategy for Social Change: Perspectives from a Community-Academic Partnership” took place on May 27. Visit the CCPH past presentations page at http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/pastpresentations.html for call audiofiles and handouts.

To sign up for one or more calls, please visit: https://catalysttools.washington.edu/webq/survey/ccphuw/54723

June 13, 2008: An Environmental Scan of Community Engagement in Health Research

What's the current climate for community engagement in research?
As health research funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, increase their emphasis on clinical and translational research and CBPR, the question arises: what do we mean by community engagement in research?
How are community leaders organizing at local and national levels to impact research priorities, funding and conduct?

Speakers: Elmer Freeman, Center for Community Health Education, Research, and Service, Boston, MA and member of the US National Institutes of Health’s Council of Public Representatives; additional speaker(s) to be announced.

Moderator: Syed Ahmed, Center for Healthy Communities at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, and member of the US National Institutes of Health’s Council of Public Representatives

June 24, 2008: Engaging in CBPR: Tips & Strategies for Community Leaders

How do community leaders concerned about the health of their communities get connected with researchers who share their interests?
Why would they even want to?
What resources are out there to help support community leaders to develop and sustain effective CBPR partnerships with researchers?
What infrastructure needs to be in place in community-based organizations to engage in research partnerships and conduct research?

Speakers: Ann-Gel Palermo, Harlem Community and Academic Partnership, New York, NY; Lola Sablan-Santos, Guam Communications Network, Long Beach, CA; Randy Jackson, Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network, Ottawa, ON, Canada

Moderator: CCPH Board Member and Community Partner/Activist Susan Gust, Minneapolis, MN

For more information: please visit the Community Partner Peer Mentoring and Advocacy website at http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/cps.html, or contact CCPH program director Kristine Wong at kristine@u.washington.edu

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The Sleeping Lady Retreat Center is an ideal site for reflective learning.

CCPH 11^th Summer Service-Learning Institute

July 25-28, 2008

Cascade Mountains of Washington State
A few spaces are remaining!

Apply NOW, while there are still spaces available, to attend the CCPH 11^th Summer Service-Learning Institute! The Institute is designed for both new and experienced service-learning (SL) practitioners (faculty, staff and community partners). National SL experts – health professional faculty who have incorporated SL into their courses and community leaders who have developed SL partnerships with health professions schools – serve as presenters and mentors.

Download the application at: http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/servicelearning.html

View the agenda, presentations and handouts from the 10^th institute held in July 2007 at http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/pastpresentations.html

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MEMBERSHIP MATTERS

Are You Enjoying ALL of the

Benefits CCPH Membership Offers?

Member Discounts on All CCPH Publications!

CCPH members receive discounts on all CCPH publications including the newest report, “Achieving the Promise of Authentic Community-Higher Education Partnerships: Community Partners Speak Out!” Other titles include “Advancing the Healthy People 2010 Objectives through Community-Based Education: A Curriculum Planning Guide” and “Linking Scholarship & Communities.”

All publication titles and member discounts are listed on the CCPH Publication Order Form which can be downloaded at http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/guide.html#PubOrderForm Questions? Contact CCPH staff member Cate Clegg at cleggc@u.washington.edu

Not Yet A Member? Join Today!

If you are interested in becoming a member of CCPH or need to renew your current membership, join today!

Having Trouble Accessing

CCPH Members-Only Website?

If you did not receive or misplaced your password for accessing member-only pages on the CCPH website, call (206) 543-8178 or email cleggc@u.washington.edu

Showcase Your Work! Be a CCPH Featured Member!

Let the world know about your partnership work! Email us at cleggc@u.washington.edu for details.

Read about Current CCPH Featured Member Renee Veksler at http://www.ccph.info

To view past CCPH Featured Members, visit http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/pastfeaturedmembers.html

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MEMBERS IN ACTION

Congratulations to CCPH member Jason Patnosh, National Director of Community HealthCorps, for his leadership of the nation's largest AmeriCorps program based in health care settings. Community HealthCorps has been renewed for a 14th year by the Corporation for National and Community Service. The National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) has been the parent organization for the program since its inception. HealthCorps members serve in community health centers across 18 states, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico. Over the last year NACHC and health centers have begun to work more with area health education centers in their regions for recruitment and training of HealthCorps members. For more information on the Community HealthCorps see: http://www.nachc.com/community-healthcorps.cfm. Community HealthCorps' National Director Jason Patnosh has been and active member of CCPH and can also be reached for more information about HealthCorps and/or NACHC's growing relationship with AHECs at jpatnosh@nachc.com.

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UPCOMING EVENTS

For details on these new listings and all previously listed upcoming events, visit

CCPH’s CONFERENCE PAGE

Join CCPH at these Upcoming Events!

JUNE 2008

4 June 13, 2008 ● 3:00-4:30pm Eastern Time ● Community Partner Educational Conference Call Series ● An Environmental Scan of Community Engagement in Health Research

See News from CCPH for complete information on the Community Partner Education Conference Call Series and visit http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/cps.html#CallSeries

· What's the current climate for community engagement in research?

· As health research funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, increase their emphasis on clinical and translational research and CBPR, the question arises: what do we mean by community engagement in research?

· How are community leaders organizing at local and national levels to impact research priorities, funding and conduct?

Moderator: Syed Ahmed, Center for Healthy Communities at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, and member of the US National Institutes of Health’s Council of Public Representatives

To sign up for one or more calls, please visit: https://catalysttools.washington.edu/webq/survey/ccphuw/54723

4 June 24, 2008 ● 3:00-4:30pm Eastern Time ● Community Partner Educational Conference Call Series ● Engaging in Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR): Tips & Strategies for Community Leaders