STAFF AND COMMITTEE REPORTS
August 17, 2011

Council Development

  1. New elections held – As of July 1, 2011, the Bernalillo County Community Health Council has a new Lead Team of officers elected by the voting membership. Our new chair is Michelle Melendez from First Choice Community Healthcare. Daryl Smith from the UNM/HSC Office of Community Affairs’ Pathways program is staying with the Lead Team as vice chair. And our new secretary is Erin Engelbrecht, coordinator of the ACHIEVE project. The new Lead Team met on July 7th and August 2nd and is off to an energetic start participating in conversations and actions that will strengthen the Health Council, including the following items in this section.
  2. CTG submission on July 14th – The Bernalillo County Community Health Council will play a large and important role if the federal Community Transformation Grant for Capacity Building in Bernalillo County is funded. The purpose of the grant would be to develop an implementation plan focused on reducing chronic disease in Bernalillo County through primarily policy and environmental changes (i.e., all “upstream” approaches). Marsha McMurray-Avila, Coordinator, took the lead in writing the grant proposal with support from several BCCHC members, County staff, DOH staff and others. Grantees will be notified by the end of September.
  3. Internal organizational development – Since the move of the BCCHC within the County structure from the County Manager’s office to the Office of Environmental Health(OEH), BCCHC staff (Marsha and Martín Muñoz) have been involved in discussions with the Education & Planning Team of OEH and Enrique Cardiel about how to integrate and align our work so that our activities can complement each other and avoid duplication of efforts.
  4. Conversations about county health department – The process for establishment of a new Bernalillo County Public Health & Environment Department is moving forward and the Lead Team has met with Julie Baca, Deputy County Manager for Community Services, to offer advice and ideas.

Community Health Improvement Planning (CHIP) Process

PRIORITY: “Healthy and sustainable communities where all families and individuals have their basic needs met and prosper.”

Economic Democracy – The committee that formed several months ago facilitated by Enrique Cardiel with the goal of “Eliminating Poverty” decided to serve as an official group of the BCCHC to address the priority area around creating and supporting this priority area in the revised CHIP. With the new “affirmative” name of “Economic Democracy” the group is beginning the process of working on a health impact assessment (HIA) to analyze the health impact of living wage policies on public employees.

PRIORITY: “Improved health and education outcomes for children/youth from pregnancy to age 25.”

Early Childhood Action Partnership/Pregnancy to Three Task Force– Having accomplished its long-time goal of bringing a Nurse-Family Partnership program to Bernalillo County, the Pregnancy to Three Task Force has decided to move its energies into the Early Childhood Action Partnership (ECAP), assuring that the activities of that group continue to recognize the importance of the pregnancy to three period of child development. From the draft Statement of Purpose: “ECAP supports existing and emerging leadership in creating a comprehensive, integrated, equitable system of early childhood development. ECAP is a place-based effort to improve outcomes for children, pregnancy to age 8, in Bernalillo County. We are concerned that there are inequitable distribution of resources, social inequities, and fragmentation of responses (services, policies, initiatives) that create and perpetuate inequitable outcomes in Bernalillo County for young children and their families. ECAP continuously asks the hard question: “How are we changing outcomes for children?”
Judy Baca from DOH and Marsha McMurray-Avila have been the primary representatives of BCCHC in ECAP activities and serve on the organizing team. ECAP has focused this summer on the subject of school readiness, engaging in a series of three study groups to look at the indicators of school readiness, frameworks for organizing and aligning “collective impact” to improve those indicators, and an action plan for the immediate future.

ABC Community Schools Partnership - Marsha and Martín have also been acting as representatives for the County in the ABC Community Schools Partnership initiative, which is poised to hire an Executive Director as they enter a new phase of action in developing a system that allows for creation and support of community schools throughout APS.

PRIORITY: “Improved healthcare access and quality of service for uninsured and indigent populations.”

Analysis of UNM Care program – With a contract from the Con Alma Health Foundation as part of their “Blueprint for Health” 6-month planning grant funded by the Kellogg Foundation, BCCHC will be contracting with Kelly O’Donnell to begin organizing data to inform an analysis of the impact of healthcare reform on the UNM Care program.

NM Alliance of Health Councils (NMAHC)

Update on NMAHC – The NM Alliance of Health Councils (NMAHC) is moving forward with several activities: 1) Applications for funding for a part-time coordinator have been submitted to the Con Alma Health Foundation and the Frost Foundation; 2) A separate contract from Con Alma is funding a contract to gather information from all the health councils statewide on their progress toward health access goals, how the federal healthcare reform might provide resources for health councils, and how health councils can contribute to the reform process; and 3) Beginning the process of requesting reinstatement of state funding for health councils. The NMAHC interim executive committee – on which Marsha serves – has been the primary mover of these activities.

Community Outreach and Participation

In addition to the meetings related to the BCCHC priorities (above), Marsha participates on behalf of BCCHC in the International District Healthy Community Coalition, including the group working on the HIA focusing on public safety on Central Avenue from San Mateo to Louisiana to inform the City’s International District Sector Development Plan. Marsha also continues work with the New Mexico Public Health Association, serving as Communications Committee chair.

Youth Engagement

Martín Muñoz, Youth Engagement Specialist/Youth Coalition Coordinator has been working on the following activities:

  • A year ago the Youth Coalition began working on establishing a Community Youth Advisory Board. We are now one step closer to achieving this goal. We were recently contacted by a staff person with the CABQ Mayor’s Office and informed that the city had passed a resolution/ordinance establishing a Mayor’s youth advisory board that will “take office” in September. Our efforts now are to duplicate this with the county and facilitate a collaboration between the two groups.
  • In July the Youth Coalition Coordinator attended the First Ascent youth leadership program in Leadville, CO. He has since been busy working to develop a similar program for Bernalillo County based on the principles of Experiential or Adventure based learning for the purpose of developing skills in non-traditional leaders. The goal is to actively involve/engage these young people in their communities.
  • Finally, the use of social media in government and business is no longer an option. Though the BCCHC and Office of Environmental Health have a presence on Facebook and other social media it is lacking. In an attempt to develop this presence Martín has developed a social media introduction and training which will hopefully aid in the effective use of social media by the BCCHC, our members and our partner organizations. To request this training please contact Martín.

Urban Health Extension

Enrique Cardiel has been working on the following activities:

  • Supervising the Map4Change project which is working on community engagement for the 2nd street corridor through Mountain View and San Jose as well as planning projects in the International District.
  • Supporting UNM HERO program in writing a health extension tool box for online access.
  • Facilitating International District Healthy Communities Coalition (IDHCC) in working toward coordinating services and policies for school health.
  • Facilitating the Economic Democracy group - the focus is on living wages in Bernalillo County.
  • Beginning to work with UNMHSC, UNM, and community partners to provide health education on Critical Health Literacy. Supporting work from County and UNMHSC partners for health education as well.
  • Working on the International District Health Impact Assessment.
  • Participating on the City of Albuquerque's Affordable Housing Committee and the HM1 Task Force for Family Friendly Jobs.