By PATRICK ADRIAN
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WINDSOR, Vt. — A diverse collective of community members gathered at the American Legion in downtown Windsor on Thursday to share their strategic planning for an extensive community health improvement project launched by the Mt. Ascutney Hospital and Health Center last year.
The convention is a continuation of the working groups formed in December based on data from a community health survey conducted by Mt. Ascutney in 2018, which produced 1,073 survey responses from a primary service area of over 44,000, or approximately 3% of the population.
Jill Lord, director of Community Health at Mt. Ascutney, said that from the survey data, the members were able to identify the four biggest community health-related priorities to respondents: alcohol and substance misuse, strengthening families, affordable housing and senior health.
“Out of that needs assessment we were able to look at the big bucket needs of our community,” Lord said.
Each working group at Thursday’s convention was tasked to develop a measurable and evidence-based strategic plan that targets needs identified through the survey data. According to a show of hands, a majority of members in each group also attended the presentations of the survey data.
Group members included many health care professionals, along with community members from other backgrounds, including industries that correlate to the category of focus. For example, the leaders for the affordable housing group were Michael Keise, the workforce housing coordinator at Vital Communities, and Fay Pearson, of the Twin Pines Housing Trust in Lebanon, New Hampshire.
“We invited everyone to these meetings,” Lord said. “The group members all came on their own volition. Everyone is welcome to join.”
Each group’s plan, when completed, will include an analysis of root causes of the problems; an aim statement; best practice strategies; and a metrics-based method to measure the outcomes.
“We had a training where we looked at what format we could use to propel ourselves forward to have a collective impact,” Lord said. “We want to make a difference in the lives who we served.”
Thursday’s meeting was primarily to allow everyone to learn about the progress of one another’s work groups, and see how each group’s work connects to the others.
“As you will see,” Lord told the groups, “there will be overlap and connections, and there will be ways that some of the work has challenges other groups in the room are dealing with.”
Lord’s claim of overlap was quickly validated by the group reports.
Melony Sheehan, leader for the alcohol and substance misuse group, said that in discussing how to address the underutilization of treatment resources by active addicts, their group sees a lot of opportunities for collaboration with the Strengthening Families group.
“We’ve talked about substance abuse as part of family culture, and how to initiate treatment with consideration to family dynamics,” Sheehan told the attendees. “Or even one identifying a need to recover but also having a need to raise one’s family and knowing that recovery takes a lot of time.”
Conversely, Courtney McKaig, reporting for the Strengthening Families group, said a need for affordable housing is a major issue facing many families — an overlap with the housing group. A lack of access to affordable daycare contributes to a burden on grandparents who assume parenting responsibilities for their children, which overlaps with senior health.
Lord said that this is an ongoing project, with groups at different stages in their planning and different meeting schedules. Additionally, as groups continue to see those intersecting needs and correlations with the other groups, their plans may evolve in new ways.
The next convention is scheduled for December. Like Thursday’s convention, Lord said that the structure will include sharing and questions, and an introduction of a new training tool to help groups facilitate. On Thursday, Lord walked groups through how to use the Gradients for Agreement Scale, which provides an effective approach to building consensus between members, by breaking opinions from “yes” or “no” absolutes and toward expressing support by degrees of agreement, such as “I really like it” or “I can live with it.” Lord said that combining listening and follow-up questioning to the scale enables members to address the reasons behind a person’s opinion, toward finding a point of agreement.
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