HCS 412 Week 5 Discussion

As per the week four discussion and assignment, imagine that you have been appointed to serve as the health department liaison to a community group mobilizing to make change. You have been working with the community for a few months and your supervisor is very happy with your efforts so far.

You have made some progress gaining access to and the trust of the community, but some people in the community are still wary of the health department’s involvement. In the past, the health department has come into the community and implemented health promotion programs without taking the community’s needs or wants into account. Many of the programs were perceived of by the community as being offensive and hurtful. For example, many older members of the community remember programs run by the health department that coerced low-income women of color to be sterilized as a way to decrease unplanned pregnancy. (See Krase, 2014 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. for a review of some of these programs.) Thus, they remain suspicious about why you and the health department want to work with them.

Unaware of some of the complexities of the health department and community's relationship, your supervisor has decided to reward your work by granting the community program $5,000. However, the money comes with a stipulation that you may not use it to pay people (i.e. for salaries; you are the staff person who will need to implement the chosen intervention, and your salary is already budgeted) and it must be used to address alcohol and drug abuse, which your supervisor perceives to be an issue in the community with which you are working. In addition, the money must be used within the next two months, prior to the end of the fiscal year. The money is "use it or lose it". If not used within the next two months, the money will be gone and your supervisor may think you and the community do not want or need funding to do your work.

Your supervisor has requested you submit by Thursday a one-page overview of the intervention you plan to implement and an associated budget that lays out how you will spend the money. This leaves you no time to talk with community leaders about what they think about the offer for program funding or what should be done with the money. You have a meeting with community leaders scheduled for Thursday night and will need to present them with the proposal you develop this week.

The textbook outlines several intervention strategies, including health communication, health education, health policy/enforcement, and environmental change. Based on the analysis you did of the community in week four, choose one or more of these strategies that you think would be most successful given the community’s work to date. In your post:

Outline the primary program components that you will spend the money on.
Create a budget that explains how the funding will be used.
Devise a strategy for how you will present the plan to the community. Consider how you will respond to their potential concerns.

Your topic may be the same as the one you used in Week 4, but it does not have to be.