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Entire community can play part in helping young people grow into thriving adults

[Published in Homer News 4/2/15]

Youth, do you have at least one adult besides your parents that you can go to for help if you had an important question affecting your life?

Adults, do you have at least one child or youth that is not your own whom you are there for if they had an important question affecting their life?

If you answer “yes” to this question, you are fulfilling an important resiliency factor for yourself and/or for a young person. If you answer “no” to this question, this is an important resiliency factor or asset to establish. Children and youth develop resiliency and assets through relationships with supportive adults and all youth need multiple supportive adults in their lives. It is a shared responsibility of all community members to build resiliency and assets in our young people and help them become thriving adults.

Need some ideas on ways to develop or support healthy relationships with young people?

• Greet all children, by name if you can.

• Get to know your friend’s children. Build a good relationship with them.

• Encourage your or your friend’s children to engage in outdoor activities with you, such as beach walks or fishing.

• Support activities that involve youth-adult partnerships.

• Join Big Brothers Big Sisters.

• Sponsor career days so young people can spend time with adults in professions that interest them.

• Plan inter-generational programs and events so that children and adults can get to know each other.

For more ideas, check out Alaska’s Initiative for Community Engagement suggestions at alaskaice.org/developmental-asset.

Everyone in the community, whether or not you are associated with an organization, initiative, or group, can work toward increasing the number of youth that have supportive adults in their lives.

In order to track whether or not our efforts are making an impact, the MAPP Steering Committee has recently released 10 resiliency measures. These 10 family well-being measures (check them out at mappofskp.net/well-being-status) are considered “community-level” measures because no individual or single organization can impact the measures by themselves, but rather these measures reflect a “collective impact” —  the results of all combined efforts.

Thus, the more focus we give to moving the needle on these measures, the more our collective efforts can become aligned and more likely to make an impact.

Contributing to community-level measures was just part of last Friday’s MAPP community meeting. Fifty-four participants representing collaborative community efforts (Care Transitions, Climate Change Adaptation, Green Dot, Homer Arts and Culture Alliance, Homer Community Food Pantry, Homer Early Childhood Coalition, Homer Prevention Project, Homer Safe Routes, Kachemak Bay Environmental Education Alliance, Park Arts Recreation and Culture Needs Assessment, Transformations, and the Woodard Creek Coalition) all joined in discussions on ways in which their individual initiatives could align with the Family Well-being goals while also  brainstorming ways to increase the effectiveness of their specific goals.

The Homer Early Child Coalition, Homer Prevention Project and Transformations workgroup goals and strategies are already highlighted in the MAPP Community Health Improvement Plan (accessible at www.mappofskp.net).

As additional groups capture their specific goals and strategies, they will be added to the plan so the vast array of collaborative strategies underway to Increase Family Well-being are accessible to the community.

The more aware we are of the common goals, the more intention we can bring to our individual efforts that reinforce the common goals. Your individual efforts are the building blocks of our collective impact. As one component of Family Well-being, let’s see if we can increase the number of youth with supportive adults in their lives.

Megan Murphy is the MAPP coordinator and can be reached at mappofskp@gmail.com or 235-0570. 

MAPP: collective impact is key

[Published in the Homer Tribune on 4/1/15]
By Chelsea Alward

HOMER TRIBUNE/Chelsea Alward Representatives from community organizations offer brief presentations about successful initiatives around Homer during a March 27 MAPP community meeting. What do climate adaptation, domestic violence prevention, and watershed restoration have in common with one another?

Among many others, each is a relevant issue in the community and presents a challenge that the people of Homer have risen to meet.

A facilitator of the conversation, Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnership offered a community meeting on March 27, to weave a tapestry of “collective impact,” initiatives changing the health landscape in Homer.

“I was watching Finding Nemo with my daughter,” began MAPP Coordinator, Megan Murphy. “And I don’t know if you remember the scene where all of the fish are trapped in the net at the very end… and they keep saying ‘swim together, swim together.’”

Murphy reminded the group of the success of the fish in the story, offering the encouragement that the fish won and got out of the net “because they were all going in the same direction.”

“That truly is what we are trying to do,” said Murphy smiling.

Nearly 50 members of a wide-range of organizations met to discuss the true meaning of collective impact; and the ways in which many initiatives are already accomplishing just that.

Collective impact, Murphy explained, is composed of five measures; a common agenda; shared measurement; mutually reinforcing activities; continuous communication; and backbone support.

“As you all can see, we all collaborate on a regular basis,” said MAPP steering committee member, Kyra Wagner motioning to the crowd. “But if you can get all five of these things going, then you’re going to have a smooth moving machine that is going to be able to show progress over time.”

Representing 12 organizations, leaders from all over the community shared bits and pieces of efforts pressing toward the goal of a healthier, more collective Homer, such as regular meetings, consistent newsletters, and activities that follow the organizational mission.

“Shared measures, shared language; it is so you can compare apples to apples,” said Murphy.
MAPP — a coalition in its seventh year — was created to develop and support a vision of community well-being, and could be considered the backbone to the cloud of organizations it is working to guide in the same direction.
Whether an organization has the aim to create recreational outlets, home health care, or preserve a community asset such as a watershed, all are contributing community well-being.

“We are working toward alignment with this big picture,” Murphy told the group. “And helping you and your initiative be better aligned as well… whether or not you know it, you are a collective impact partner,” said Murphy.

According to the coordinator, the two primary resources that MAPP offers to the community is an ongoing needs assessment, and community health improvement help. Long awaited, the time has finally come for a focus on “action.”

But action isn’t always an organization.

One shared measure that received special attention at the meeting, focused on the support provided to and by role models to create family resilience. The measure, stated as “the percentage of students who feel comfortable seeking help from at least one adult beside their parents if they had an important question affecting their lives,” is one that Murphy said is accessible to all, young and old.

“What is neat to me about it is that a lot of people don’t have the time or the availability to participate in meetings between kids and work, and whatever else they may be engaged in,” said Murphy in an interview. “But with that type of measure, the community can become more aware of how we can do simple things to create collective impact, that you don’t have to be part of a group to accomplish.”

A work session following the presentations provided for an hour and a half of brainstorming. Entities with a similar focus – such as public health or early education — came together and strategize for the short and the long term, sharing resources and searching for solutions to common barriers.

And, a new group focused on climate adaptation was born.

“I’d like to conclude the meeting by everyone just taking a moment to think about why you are here and why you are inspired to be doing what you are doing,” said Murphy. “I hope you felt the synergy in the room. It is so neat to hear all of the different things that increase family well being happening in our community.”

Homer Council On the Arts Executive Director, Gail Edgerly, offered her thoughts for the finish. “We are here because the power of working collectively is so much stronger and deeper than working alone.”

MAPP named finalist in national initiative

[Published in Homer News 3/19/15]

MAPP of the Southern Kenai Peninsula announced this week it has been named a finalist in a national initiative aimed at accelerating the journey to improve health and wellbeing.

That means MAPP, or Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships,  is in the running to receive funding from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement to become a leading community on health improvement, as part of an initiative known as SCALE (Spreading Community Accelerators through Learning and Evaluation).

With two years of grant support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, SCALE aims to work with communities to develop capability to improve health and to spread effective community-driven approaches across the United States, according to a MAPP press release.

Multiple collaborative efforts now underway

[Published in Homer News 3/5/15]

Take a look around our community and you will see inspiring individual and collaborative efforts abound, supporting our well-being and reinforcing the quality of life that keeps us here. Many of these efforts exist because individuals are inspired to address something that needs changing and they find others that want to join them in that mission. It’s the power of connection.

Our community has multiple collaborative efforts underway that are collectively contributing to the priority community goal of increasing family well-being. In the language of “collective impact,” these are “differentiated, yet mutually reinforcing activities.”

Examples of community health improvement coalitions, all at various stages, include:

• Care Transitions: reducing readmissions into care facilities;

• Crosswalk/Homer Pedestrian and Bike Alliance: transforming Homer into a safe and healthy, family-friendly, walkable, runnable, bikeable community where people like to live and visit;

• Homer Arts and Culture Alliance: enhancing the sustainability and relevancy of the arts and humanities in Homer through advocacy and collaboration among arts and culture organizations;

• Homer Early Childhood (Coalition): ensuring all Alaskan children begin school ready to succeed

• Homer Prevention Project: reducing underage drinking and adult heavy and binge drinking in the Homer and Anchor Point area, in addition to reducing the Adverse Childhood Experiences that result from adult heavy and binge drinking;

• Kachemak Bay Environmental Education Alliance: educating and inspiring individuals and the Kachemak Bay community to actively participate in environmental stewardship as integral elements of a healthy sustainable ecosystem;

• Park Arts Recreation and Culture: determining the resources and prioritizing the needs for our community concerning parks, arts, recreation and culture facilities and programs with a 10- to 15-year outlook;

• ReCreate REC: working toward solving the recreational needs of the Southern Kenai Peninsula;

• Transformations: cultivating healthy relationships and resilient families, free of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and substance abuse; and

• Woodard Creek (Coalition): promoting the health and safety of the Woodard Creek Watershed as a community asset.

Wow. This list — which is not comprehensive — is an impressive reflection of our community’s willingness to work together toward common goals that raise the bar for our well-being. It also reinforces that we don’t all need to do it all. Divide and conquer! To borrow an excerpt from the Green Dot tagline, “No one needs to do everything, but everyone has to do something.”

Aligned efforts working toward a shared goal are more effective in addressing complex, social issues than isolated efforts working independently toward the same issue. MAPP provides an overarching umbrella or “backbone” for all community health improvement efforts to coexist.

Additionally, MAPP strives to connect the dots between these efforts, fostering synergy and alignment within the present overarching family well-being goal.

In order to facilitate dot-connecting, MAPP will be hosting a community gathering on Friday, March 27, from 8:30 a.m to noon at the Kachemak Bay Campus Pioneer Hall. This gathering is open to the public and provides a fantastic opportunity to hear about and share community health improvement efforts underway. It also provides facilitated work time for coalitions/groups to further their own specific collective impact goals and strategies. RSVPs are appreciated.

Are there coalition topics above that inspire you to get involved? If not, ask yourself what inspiration you need to participate in and/or initiate addressing a community need. You, too, (and a small group of people) can create a movement!