Rural Health Network Planning Program – Share Health Southeast Georgia
https://www.sharehealthsega.org
The Georgia Health Policy Center recently spoke to Barbara Bruno, the executive director, and Tanesha Slocumb, the program manager, at Share Health Southeast Georgia about how this grant is being used to get the Women’s Wellness Network off the ground.
To date, what has been the biggest accomplishment or win in establishing your network?
Barbara: Getting the partners together in the same room, and seeing them so excited about actually doing the work and having an opportunity to address some of the women’s health needs that these two counties have has been really the biggest accomplishment. These network partners are very good at working together. Sometimes when you get partners together, they are so siloed that they have a hard time sharing information and opportunities. But for this network, the partners are very open to sharing their ideas and strategies. So, that has really been very good to see.
Tanesha: This is our fourth first time offering a minigrant program. It is a way of sharing the funding and helping them to launch an idea that will help move the work forward. It is an opportunity for organizations to apply for funding to support an initiative that also aligns with the goals of the agency. In this case, we were looking for partners to apply to do some health education around women’s health or social service needs. The partner that was selected had a nutrition education program that they wanted to get started. The minigrant provided her an opportunity to start building knowledge of the campaign within the community, do outreach, build those partner relationships, and add more substance to some of the programs that she had already been doing. The women in the community were really interested in more health and nutrition education and that information helped her bring this initiative to life .
What is a tip or early learning that you would share with an organization launching a similar network?
Barbara: Be transparent. I think in a lot of networks there is not enough transparency. And I think when everybody knows that you are being transparent, everybody else tends to be transparent as well, and that fosters a lot of goodwill. I think one of the reasons why our coalitions have been successful is because the funding has been distributed among partners. It is not one organization that has access to all the funding, so I think that really means a lot to people.
Tanesha: We were in a very unique position with this grant because it came almost immediately following our COVID Health Equity Navigators Program. With that particular program, we were able to do a lot of community outreach and get to know a lot of these partners. When it came time to apply for this grant, we had already built relationships with each of them individually. And I think that really did go a long way and help us to get them on board. If you have not had that kind of opportunity, one thing we do at our meetings is icebreakers. I think that allows us to get to know each other at that personal level so that we are continuously working on building authentic relationships.
How do you see participation in the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy’s Office’s Network Development Planning Program impacting your broader health improvement efforts?
Barbara: I have been involved over the years in four or five Rural Health Network Planning grants. Every single one of those coalitions are still in existence today. These grants are not meant to be the end point, but are really meant to give a network a chance to establish itself, identify needs, and come up with a plan to move forward. That is where we want to be at the end of the planning grant so that we can then go on to identify funds to move the action plan forward. This grant gives the network a year to understand and coalesce around the issue, and to identify what the network wants to focus on. This gives you a good start to have a solid platform to go and look for other funding to support these initiatives.
Do you have an example or story that illustrates the value of planning for a rural health network instead of a single organization at the helm?
Tanesha: Share Health itself does not do any direct client work. We provide support with data management capacity and coalition development, and all of those needs. We have brought these partners together that are the lead health care, public health, and social service organizations in those counties. They have those direct relationships with the clients and with the community that we are trying to work with and address these issues for. These organizations with the direct relationships with the clients have more accurate data and expertise working with the women than we do. So, they bring that unique relationship and perspective to the table. We can say this is what we thought was going on, but they can say what they actually experience, so we can go forward and address the issues collectively with a more comprehensive perspective.
What is next on the horizon for your grant-funded program?
Barbara: The two ideas that had the most consensus at our last meetings were the idea of developing a resource hub and the concept of lay community worker program or trusted messengers that can relay information to women. It is not just knowing where to go to get information but also how to navigate through everything to actually get to a service. So, after the planning grant ends, we will try to implement these things.