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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Frances D. Butterfoss, PhD, Health Promotion/Disease Prevention, Center for Pediatric Research, Eastern Virginia Medical School, 855 W. Brambleton Ave, Norfolk, VA 23510, 757-668-6429, fbutterf@chkd.com
Background: Community coalitions and partnerships are difficult to sustain. Coordinators and leaders are often under-trained or lack sufficient support to meet challenges that threaten organizational viability and productivity. A training and technical assistance model was piloted with Virginia's seven regional Healthy Start Perinatal Councils. The partnerships were located in both urban and rural settings with unique community contexts, but all were committed to reduce infant mortality and low weight births. The pilot tested the premise that by providing coalition leaders with sufficient training and technical assistance, they would improve organizational structure and function leading to increased coalition effectiveness.
Methods: The 6-step Coalition Technical Assistance and Training (CTAT) Model was implemented from 1998-2001 with all 7 perinatal councils. Council coordinators assessed coalitions using the Coalition Effectiveness Inventory (CEI) at baseline and post-intervention. Based on CEI results and working with a consultant, specific action steps for improvement were suggested. Training needs were identified and subsequent training and technical assistance was provided to leaders and members to improve skills, coalition process and structure.
Results: Pre and post-intervention data from the CEI were analyzed using the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test. Results showed significant improvement in all three areas that measured coalition effectiveness: Participants (14%, p=. 002), Process (56%, p=. 02), Structures (31%, p=. 02).
Conclusions/Implications: The CTAT model helped build staff/leader skills in diagnosing partnership strengths and challenges. By implementing recommendations, Councils functionally improved. Long-term analysis should show that perinatal health status outcomes also improved as a result of this process.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Training, Community-Based Partnership
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.