Following up on Steve’s post, I visited the discussion forum for the web cast on Public Health Survival: Leadership in a Falling Market (which is now posted). One of the respondents wrote in to tell about his predicament – to save money, the City Council had dismantled his public health department, transferring some functions to other departments, cancelling others, and leaving this respondent as a “department of one.”
I was shocked by the drastic nature of this city council’s actions, and it struck me that a lot of drastic stuff might be going on out there that we in academia are not fully aware of. It would help us to know what is going on for you… that way we can think about things we could do or offer that would better serve you through these trying times. In any event, as a community of practice, it would be good for us all to know what’s going on and how different individuals, organizations, and communities are dealing with it. For example, the man who is the only member of his department is working on changing his role from one of “directing and controlling to one of advising and consulting,” he said on the discussion forum. Ideally, he is drawing upon connections he’s made in the past to work with others who are now doing the work he and his colleagues used to do. He asked, at the end of his post, whether there were any role models for such a drastic transformation. All I could think of was the importance of making sure you have a community of people and organizations who understand what public health is and why it is important to them that the public stay healthy and safe: that way you'll never truly be a "department of one." But I'd rather hear from you...
If you get a chance, please write in with your stories about “providing leadership in a falling market” – whether yours personally, or those you have heard from others, and what you are doing right now to cope with the challenges of these times. And we realize there are still the day-to-day challenges – what is getting cut in your health department? Are you seeing a change in your clientele as a result of the economic downturn? Also, if you’ve undertaken public health business planning in the past, are you having any positive results of work you’ve done building partnerships, using business practices, and the like?
- Anne
A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals.
Fiscal issues
If you didn't see it live, take a look at the webinar on public health survival in a falling market-- should be archived at the site in the next week or so.
Here are two things that came out of the session that stuck with me and that seem to apply to our continuing discussion here:
Here are two things that came out of the session that stuck with me and that seem to apply to our continuing discussion here:
- Reach Out To Partners: Now may feel like the time for your organization to circle the wagons, pull back, go into your shell.It isn't. Jim Marks at Robert Wood Johnson Foundation says now is the time to reach out, and Bobby Pestrunk, the new director of NACCHO, agrees. Here's my take on why: resource deficits make it tough on many different organizations that are trying to make communities more healthy. Bobby points out "your partners are hurting too." The fiscal crisis makes it more important-- and perhaps paradoxically easier-- for you to work together now. Leah Devlin (state health director in NC) talks about going after big grants and lining up health care partners, for instance.
- Look For New Resources: Of course. Yes, the budget is shrinking. Some things that your organization had been doing will no longer be possible. So what things do you stop doing? The opportunity here is to stop doing things that are inefficient and unimportant... and use the newly-discovered time and energy to do something new, different, more effective, more useful to your constituents, more valuable to your funders, more timely and relevant. As recently as last year, I had public health leaders tell me that their plates were too full, they had more programs and partners than they could track, and that they wished they could get out of some of their long-term commitments!
--Steve Orton
Leadership Programs at NCIPH
Steve mentioned the Southeast Public Health Leadership Institute in his last post, and I thought I would take this opportunity to plug this and another leadership training program (the Emerging Leaders in Public Health program), both run through the Institute. Many of our Management Academy for Public Health Alumni are leaders in their organizations, and we see them in our leadership programs as well. This is great for us (because our alumni are wonderful) and we’ve had some really positive feed back from them, so we think it’s pretty good for them as well.
The Southeast Public Health Leadership Institute is a year-long leadership development program for mid- to senior level public health administrators working in the states of Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
The Institute strengthens leadership competencies, such as creating a shared vision, personal awareness, systems thinking, risk communication, team building, ethical decision making and political and social change strategies. Each scholar also completes an individual learning plan, a community leadership project, a mentoring relationship and four small group assignments.
SEPHLI begins in December and ends the following December. Face-to-face interactions between the scholars and guest faculty occur three times during the program year: at the beginning, at mid-year (May) and at the end. Between these scheduled meetings, Institute activities take place via distance learning using a mixture of both real time and asynchronous delivery modalities. Scholar distance learning requirements include attending a minimum of four telephone conference calls and two online computer forums.
The Emerging Leaders in Public Health (ELPH) program is designed to prepare the next generation of public health leaders to serve in significant leadership capacities in the next decade. The program focuses on minority public health professionals because African Americans, Native Americans/Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders, Asian Americans, and Hispanics are under-represented in terms of public health leadership.
ELPH scholars learn through a combination of on-site intensive workshops, personalized coaching, action learning teams, and individualized leadership coaching.
Every year an extremely impressive cadre of scholars apply for and attend the programs. In both cases, scholars attend as individuals and complete individual projects. Unlike the Management Academy, their projects do not have to be for revenue generating programs, or use business planning at all – and they can be internal to their organizations. Check out the SEPHLI and ELPH websites to read some amazing stories about graduate success stories.
Applications for ELPH are being accepted now until May 31, 2009. SEPHLI applications are generally in late summer – we’ll keep you posted.
The Southeast Public Health Leadership Institute is a year-long leadership development program for mid- to senior level public health administrators working in the states of Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
The Institute strengthens leadership competencies, such as creating a shared vision, personal awareness, systems thinking, risk communication, team building, ethical decision making and political and social change strategies. Each scholar also completes an individual learning plan, a community leadership project, a mentoring relationship and four small group assignments.
SEPHLI begins in December and ends the following December. Face-to-face interactions between the scholars and guest faculty occur three times during the program year: at the beginning, at mid-year (May) and at the end. Between these scheduled meetings, Institute activities take place via distance learning using a mixture of both real time and asynchronous delivery modalities. Scholar distance learning requirements include attending a minimum of four telephone conference calls and two online computer forums.
The Emerging Leaders in Public Health (ELPH) program is designed to prepare the next generation of public health leaders to serve in significant leadership capacities in the next decade. The program focuses on minority public health professionals because African Americans, Native Americans/Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders, Asian Americans, and Hispanics are under-represented in terms of public health leadership.
ELPH scholars learn through a combination of on-site intensive workshops, personalized coaching, action learning teams, and individualized leadership coaching.
Every year an extremely impressive cadre of scholars apply for and attend the programs. In both cases, scholars attend as individuals and complete individual projects. Unlike the Management Academy, their projects do not have to be for revenue generating programs, or use business planning at all – and they can be internal to their organizations. Check out the SEPHLI and ELPH websites to read some amazing stories about graduate success stories.
Applications for ELPH are being accepted now until May 31, 2009. SEPHLI applications are generally in late summer – we’ll keep you posted.
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