March 23rd CHIP Update

Dear Community Partners and Key Stakeholders,

We are reaching out to you as important contributors to our community's response to COVID-19.

This is an unprecedented time.  We are so grateful for all of the work you are doing to support individuals and families in our community! 

We wanted to share with you a few resources that may be helpful AND seek your assistance in promoting them:

1.  United Way of Asheville Buncombe County is now hosting information about community resources that will be updated regularly by United Way's 211.  100 individuals, including community organizations, are working diligently to identify up to date resources that are safely serving our community.  If you know of resources that should be added please contact 211info@unitedwayabc.org. 

2. Hands On Asheville-Buncombe is coordinating volunteers to support our community's response.  You can register your volunteer needs and sign up to volunteer here.

3.  Frameworks Institute has developed a resource to guide us in common language during this time of crisis:

• Connect individual action to the common good by using a broad 'us.'            "When we wash our hands and keep our distance, we protect everyone in our community.  Let's come together by staying apart."
• Make an explicit moral argument for addressing specific populations' needs."The right thing to do is ensure we all have what we need to be well - regardless ofhow we earn a living or how much we make. People already pushed to the brink bylow wages and high housing costs will be most affected by this virus and an economic slowdown.  This is the time to live up to our ideal of justice for all."
• Look for opportunities to talk about the positive aspects of interconnection.      "We're being reminded just how connected we all are - and how much we depend onone another. And it's not just the spread of the virus. For everyone who works fromhome, there are many more who make that possible by working at the hospital, thepower plant, the grocery store, the delivery service. This moment shows us how much we all need each other to keep going."

Opportunities to Support Each Other's Work AND Our Community:
Many of our partners are engaging in advocacy efforts across the community and state.  You'll continue to find these on our Engage Page. If you wish to share opportunities let us know.  Don't forget that you can share these on our Facebook Page.

Children First/Communities In Schools of Buncombe County is promoting an opportunity to prioritize childcare, paid leave, and health care coverage in the Phase 3 COVID relief bill being acted on by US Congress.

Our Voice asks that you continue to broadly share their Family Violence Survey.

Buncombe County Partnership for Children asks for you to also continue to share a survey with parents or caregivers of children ages 0-5 that will help inform a new parenting program. You'll find the spanish language version and promotion flyers on our Support page. 

The NC Center for Nonprofits is collecting information from NC-based non-profit organizations about their needs stemming from COVID-19.  You don't need to be a member of the Center in order to response to the survey.

Reliable Resources about COVID:
We are continuing to update our Resources Page with reliable information.  If there is something you would like to see us post, please let us know.

Our next Advisory Council meeting will be held remotely on Thursday 4/2/2020.  We will send login information and instructions closer to the time. It will focus on COVID information, resources and a discussion of how we can consider equity in our response. 


Take good care. 

Warmly, 
The Buncombe CHIP Leadership Team

March CHIP Update - CHIP during COVID-29

Dear Community Partners and Key Stakeholders,

We are reaching out to update you on changes in our work related to the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). As a Community Health Improvement Advisory Council, our role is shifting to support the prevention and treatment of this disease. We invite you to partner with us in this evolving work in order to better support the people you serve across our community. 

A few actions you can take and promote through your networks include:

1. Sign up for BC Alerts by texting BCAlerts to 888-777 from your cell phone. Make sure to include the hyphen!  You will receive a response asking for your zipcode for more targeted alert info.
2. Email non-medical questions, concerns and resources related to preparedness and treatment to ready@buncombe.org. You can also send available resources directly to us through Terri March so we can collect and disseminate them. 
3. Access resources and refer others to BuncombeCounty.org/bcready.
4. If your organization would like to become more involved and engaged, please contact Zo Mpofu about regular meetings of an epidemiology group. 
5. Review the following linked documents to help inform your work and conversations with others: the Governor's State of Emergency declaration, a statement from Race Forward (home to the Government Alliance on Race and Equity or GARE) on The Coronavirus Emergency, Official Response and Its Impacts on Communities of Color, an Equity Message Guidance document to promote inclusive language and less stigmatizing terminology in talking about COVID-19, a Glossary of Terms to help understand the language being used by public health, community officials and the media in discussing the virus and finally a SAMHSA guidance document on supporting behavioral health during social isolation.
6. to promote inclusive language and less stigmatizing terminology in talking about COVID-19, a Glossary of Terms to help understand the language being used by public health officials, community officials and the media in discussing the virus and finally a SAMHSA guidance document on supporting behavioral health during social isolation.  You'll also find all of these on our CHIP Blog Resources Page

We will keep you informed of developments through email and other means. We will also be sharing positive community health resources not related to this disease through the Facebook page and invite you to do the same: https://www.facebook.com/BuncombeCHIP/ . We will also share learning opportunities on our Learn Blog page.

We also want to let you know about two important survey processes being conducted by partnerrs. Our Voice asks that you broadly share their Family Violence Survey and Buncombe County Partnership for Children aks you to share a survey with parents or caregivers of children ages 0-5 that will help inform a new parenting program. You'll find the spanish language version and promotion flyers on our Support page. 

Our next Advisory Council meeting will be remote, and we will send login information and instructions closer to the time. It will focus on COVID information, resources and a discussion of how we can consider equity in our response. 

As Dr. Mandy Cohen, our State Health and Human Services Secretary, has said, Let’s be guided by compassion and reason and work to support each other as a community.”

Take good care. 

Warmly, 

The Buncombe CHIP Leadership Team

February 2020 CHIP Update

Dear Community Partners and Key Stakeholders,

February is Black History Month and it is important to reflect on the impact of the history of Black Americans on their health and the health of our communities.  We have provided a number of community and learning opportunities on our Learn page.  If you missed our screening of Power to Heal:  Medicare and the Civil Rights Revolution at our January CHIP Advisory meeting, there is another opportunity hosted by Asheville Parks and Recreation on February 24th at the Linwood Crump Community Center followed by a group discussion.  The City of Asheville Office of Equity & Inclusion and Rainbow Community School's Black History IS American History Film Series  includes 4 films also followed by discussion with the intent to spark dialogue and racial healing.  As redlining is a significant part of our community's history, Health Begins is offering the webinar Redlining & Health Equity: How Health Systems Can Help Dismantle Structural Racism on March 4th.  Among the presenters is Rishi Manchanda and Josie Williams from the Greensboro Housing Coalition, and one of the initial NC Community Centered Health Home cohort along with Mothering Asheville.  

If you have other opportunities you would like CHIP staff to share, please either share directly on our Facebook page or reach out to Terri to add to our blog resources.  Continuing to think about housing's role in equity, on January 14, 2020, HUD formally published a proposed rule in the Federal Register that would redefine the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule (AFFH), eliminating its focus on addressing residential segregation. Join the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Build Healthy Places Network for a webinar on Wednesday, February 19 at 11 am to learn more about the proposed change, what it could mean for health equity and what communities can do to respond.

Thanks to all of you who participated in input sessions to help craft Healthy North Carolina 2030 which has just been published!  Western North Carolina had the largest number of community members participate in statewide input sessions. This document, with it's health indicators and targets, will serve as the State’s Health Improvement Plan for the next decade and is an important reference and guide to support all the work we do.  The 2030 guidelines have taken a major step forwarded in including a indicators that address a broader view of the influences on health and well-being with a much needed emphasis on health disparities and in assuring that the state collects and provides disaggrated data to the greatest extent possible.  Thanks also to Zo Mpofu for serving on one of the working groups that helped guide this process!

Our January CHIP Advisory Council ended abruptly with a fire alarm as we were discussing what changes and emerging issues our community is experiencing since finalizing our CHA process.  These will be included in our State of the County Health (SOTCH) report due to the NC Department of Public Health in a few weeks.  We gathered up all the notes that were left on the table and added them to our list, however we want to gives those present (as well as community partners who do not attend the Advisory Council) an opportunity to review and provide additional imput.  You can find the summary here.  Please email Terri any input.  Many of you know that we are in the process of developing an application for organizations or existing coalitions to serve as chairs (or co-chairs) for coalitions that will guide the CHIP work around Birth Equity and around Mental Health and Wellbeing.  This is a change and one that we hope will further ground this work in community.  We had great input and insight into the structure and content of the application at our February CHIP Advisory as well as from those who served/are serving in this capacity from the previous cycle (thank you!!!!).  A small group of individuals have volunteered to provide some additional review as we finalize the application.  If you would like to be part of this process as well, please let us know!

We are also excited to announce that the CHIP Advisory unanimously voted to have Jacylyn Kiger, Chief Operations Officer with Pisgah Legal Services will serve as our new co-chair. 

We are sharing two ways for you to engage this month. We hope you will consider participating in a survey to inform VAYA's annual community needs assessement.   You'll find more information and a flyer to share with others on our Engage Blog page.  Also, now is the time to use your “trusted voices” to raise awareness on the 2020 Census.  You'll find resources and a listing of related local community events on the at the League of Women Voters of AVL/Buncombe website.

Keep up-to-date on more timely information and partner updates on our Facebook page. You'll also find resources and learning opportunities on our blog pages. We try to keep up-to-date on postings related to ways to support our partners and engage in advocacy.  
Please help us better support your organizations and advocacy platforms by sharing your info on our Blog and Facebook pages. And, of course, you can send content to Terri at anytime.

With gratitude,

The CHIP Team!

CHIP Update Holiday Edition

Dear Community Partners and Key Stakeholders,

We are very fortunate to work with such a dedicated group of individuals and organizations on the CHIP Advisory Committee and our throughout the community. Your engagement and support will help to move the needle on our disparate infant mortality and mental health focus areas. 

We thank you for your service and wish you a wonderful holiday season!

 Jan and Frank  

Before many of you begin taking time away to spend with family and friends during holiday celebrations, please note that the first CHIP Advisory Council meeting will shift to the second Thursday (January 9th) and will be open to anyone who would like to attend.  AARP and ABIPA will be hosting a screening of The Power to Heal: Medicare and the Civil Rights Revolution.  This powerful film tells the story of the historic struggle to secure equal and adequate access to healthcare for all Americans and is being hosted by ABIPA and AARP.  You can view the film trailer here (although it does a poor job of providing a sense of this documentary's power).  

Given we will provide breakfast, please take a minute to RSVP at http://bit.ly/PowerToHeal_RSVP, even if you normally attend.  And please share!

We also want to provide a quick update on the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners presentation on December 3rd as well as thank those of you who showed up to demonstrate your support!  We were very pleased with the response we received. The Commissioners were receptive and many of them clearly expressed their support for our work to address Birth Equity and Mental Health & Well-being as well as the work to advance cross-sector collaboration to undo racism. Several commissioners specifically spoke to the value of what we shared to developing the county strategic priorities  The video from that meeting has not yet been posted, but you can view the slides here.

With gratitude from the whole CHIP Team, 
We wish you joy, peace and hope as we move into the new year!

November CHIP Update

Dear Community Partners and Key Stakeholders,

We are so pleased to announce that our Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) has been approved by the NC Department of Public Health. The plan is now publicly available for you to view and use to inform your work, as is the Community Health Assessment (CHA).  It is important to stress while the CHA is a final document, the CHIP is a living and evolving document and will change over time.  The online document articulates that this is an early plan with much of the focus on process.  The next phase of the work is just beginning and we look forward to engaging each of you and our larger community over the coming months.  In the next day or so, we will be sending out a summary of the work to date broadly to all who contributed to the development of the CHA and CHIP.  

• To access the Buncombe County CHIP Plan for 2018-2021 visit: http://bit.ly/BuncombeCHIP2018_2021

• To access the Buncombe County 2018 CHA                                visit: http://bit.ly/Buncombe2018CHA

Our CHIP staff had the opportunity to provide an update on our CHIP Plan to the Buncombe County Health and Human Services Board on October 25th. The presentation was well received and generated some thoughtful discussion, particularly around the overarching strategy of Advancing Cross-sector Collaboration to Undo Racism and the role of the HHS Board in pushing this work forward. 

Commissioner Edwards requested that staff present on the CHIP process and strategies to the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners before the board finalizes their Strategic Priority work in at the end of this year. The CHIP presentation will be at the upcoming County Commissioners' meeting on Tuesday, December 3rd at 5 PM, at 200 College Street (Room 326) - we welcome you to join and invite any community partners you think may be interested!

The County Commissioners are looking for more community input on the next Buncombe County Strategic Plan through the first week of December. Please go to a public input session and share your voice on what you believe is most important for the County to prioritize over the coming years: 

• Monday, Dec. 2           1:00 - 3:00      Big Ivy Community Center 
• Wednesday, Dec. 4     2:30 - 4:30      Black Mountain TownHall  
• Wednesday, Dec. 4     5:30 - 7:30      Arthur R. Edington Center
• Friday, Dec. 6              5:30 - 7:30      Enka-Candler Library
• Saturday, Dec. 7         11:00 - 1:00     Skyland Fire Department

The CHIP Advisory Council is pleased to announce Emma Olsen as our new chair. Emma is Director of Partnerships and Evaluation for the NC Center for Health and Wellness and comes to this role with deep knowledge of RBA and our CHIP process. In fact, Emma interned with CHIP in 2014 and first brought Results Based Accountability and the online scorecard to our attention as a tool for sharing data and communicating progress.  You can read Emma's bio here.

Our CHIP process identified advancing Cross-sector Collaboration to Create a Trauma-Responsive and Resilience-focused Community as one of two strategies with a key emphasis on services and supports for our youngest community members and communities of color. Our strategy conversations recognized the challenges and progress our schools are making and stressed the importance of identifying community-based approaches to support the work happening in schools, and in ensuring supports extended to teachers and parents. With this context, we have asked David Thompson, Director of Student Services with Buncombe County Schools and Shane Cassida, Executive Director for Student Support Services with Asheville City Schools to attend our December 5th CHIP Advisory Meeting to report on their collaborative approaches to address equity and create trauma-responsive environments to support social emotional learning and the mental health and well-being of students and how they are measuring progress.  

Keep up-to-date on more timely information and partner updates on our Facebook page. You'll also find resources and learning opportunities on our blog pages. We try to keep up-to-date on postings related to ways to support our partners and engage in advocacy.  
Please help us better support your organizations and advocacy platforms by sharing your info on our Blog and Facebook pages. And, of course, you can send content to Terri at anytime.
With gratitude,

The CHIP Team!

September CHIP Update

Dear Community Partners and Key Stakeholders,

The CHIP process in August has focused on multiple meetings and input sessions with key stakeholders to provide additional insight and input into what was learned from our June and July Talk to Action community conversations for both Birth Outcomes & Infant Mortality and Mental Health. In August we presented the outcomes of these community sessions to our CHIP Advisory who walked through and absorbed the products of those conversations and then provided input into what they felt might be missing or additional strategy possibilities. This also provided additional information to our Advisory as they begin to consider what their larger work and structure is moving into this CHIP cycle. 

Next week we will submit our CHIP Action Plan to the state. While we have identified broad focus areas for our work ahead and general strategy directions, we are very much in the early stages of learning from our community to clearly articulate the steps we will need to impact Birth Equity and Mental Health.  Consequently, the plan being submitted focuses largely on the action steps we will be taking over the next 6 months to fully develop and/or clarify partnerships, detailed action plans, roles and responsibilities as well as the structures needed to evaluate and sustain our work together.

At this week's CHIP Advisory we will share what our team has been learning from others about potential approaches to more effectively implement collective impact in Buncombe County and possible ways to alter our structure to better achieve success.  Part of this includes building on what we have learned from the past few years about elevating community leadership and how we can do this better.  We plan to convene a team to develop an application and selection process to more successfully identify community leadership.  You can find some of the resources from ACE Nashville and other organizations we have learned about with support from Robert Albright at FSG, the organization that was in the forefront of articulating the concept of Collective impact in the Stanford Social Innovation Review in January 2011 on our CHIP Resources page under Collective Impact. 

A couple of key updates to our ongoing work to advance Birth Equity: 
There were great strides in July – August in the work towards becoming a Breastfeeding Family-Friendly Community. Both Buncombe County and Asheville City governments adopted resolutions in support of becoming a Breastfeeding Family Friendly Community! The Buncombe County Breastfeeding Coalition, convening for the first time in July, will support this process forward. Many local community partners highlighting the importance of supporting breastfeeding during National Breastfeeding Awareness Month in August and The Mountain Xpress featured the 10-step process our community is pursuing in their August 1st cover article. Many thanks go to Buncombe HHS and the Buncombe Partnership for Children for their leadership on this important work.

Our CityMatCH Equity Institute Travel Team in Minneapolis

August launched the start of our community’s 3-year participation in CityMatCH’s Institute for Equity in Birth Outcomes learning collaborative! CityMatCH is a national organization of city and county health department maternal and child health (MCH) programs and leaders. Their mission is to strengthen public health leaders and organizations to promote equity and improve the health of urban women, families, and communities. Our Buncombe travel team, attended the 4-day inaugural session last week where we were inspired by leaders in the field including Dr. Arthur James, Dr. Vijaya Hogan, and Dr. Renée Canady, and learned from other communities across the country engaging in equity work. Our travel team will be sharing what they learn with our larger local collaborative and we anticipate our Buncombe CHIP partner's participation will push us to authentically engage community partners, use data more effectively, and evaluate our work in promoting equity in our institutions as well as in our community. We are excited to see how the guidance of the Institute will help shape our collaborative birth equity work moving forward.

Keep up-to-date on more timely information and partner updates on our Facebook page. You'll also find resources and learning opportunities on our blog pages.  We try to keep up=to=date on postings related to ways to support our partners and engage in advocacy.  One upcoming annual event that any of us look forward to each year (and talk about what we heard the rest of the year) is Pisgah Legal's Justice Forum. Visit our support page to learn about this year's powerful speaker.  Please help us better support your organizations and advocacy platforms by sharing your info on our Blog and Facebook pages.  And, of course, you can send content to Terri at anytime.

In appreciation of all you do!

The CHIP Team!

August Monthly Update

Dear Community Partners and Key Stakeholders,

June and July have been busy months for our CHIP process! June launched our Talk to Action community conversations for both Birth Outcomes & Infant Mortality and Mental Health at the YWCA. We are so grateful for and inspired by all of you who set aside an evening or more of your time to take part!

Our Talk to Action participants were engaged and the conversations were rich, providing a good foundation for moving forward. We are still sifting through and organizing all the input but soon will be able to share the meeting notes and outcomes publicly. Common themes across both focus conditions were engaging community, justice system and healthcare leaders to undo racism and promote equity and well-being at both the organizational and community-wide levels, with a strong focus on supporting youth and school-based initiatives.

We continue to meet with individuals with expertise on equity in birth outcomes and mental health, and factors that influence these conditions. We are working to build new connections with folks doing relevant community work, such as those working within the justice system to address racial inequities and increase support for those with mental health vulnerabilities.

Next steps for our CHIP process are sharing the stories and strategies that came out of the Talk 2 Actions with other groups and individuals who can help us further understand the context of this work in our community and continue to refine next steps.  We will be gathering input from the CHIP Advisory Council at our August meeting, and with youth in the next few weeks.  We are happy to continue reaching out to additional individuals and groups to get input and feedback over the coming months as new stakeholders are identified.

A draft of our Community Health Improvement Plan will be submitted to the NC Division of Public Health in September. It is important to underscore the word draft here.  While we will submit a fairly detailed work plan, as we begin to convene individuals to take action and identify those in the community who can champion this community-led work, the CHIP plan almost certainly will evolve and change as we learn more from our community and each other.

Social Determinants continues to be an area of interest and learning across the community, the state and nationally.  The CHIP team is revisiting our CHIP Advisory Council's work around a Social Determinants and Health Equity that we started several months ago and we hope to reconvene a small team fairly soon to continue developing our own language for what we mean when we say SDoH. In the meantime we encourage you to check out the resources on SDoH found on our CHIP blog Resource page.  If you were not able to attend the recent Social Determinants of Health Conference at MAHEC in June (or just haven't downloaded the materials) you'll find a link here.  The conference included a keynote by Dr. Betsy Tillis on the North Carolina Response to Social Determinants of Health.  Presentation materials on the following topics were also made available: innovative strategies from communities across the country (Carrie Lee Carroll with the RWJF Culture of Health Prize at University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute), how local public health departments are addressing SDoH (Laurey Stradley, Alliance for a Healthier Generation) and a presentation from our CHIP team on our local journey to leverage collective impact to address SDoH.  You can find these presentations on our Resource page under Social Determinants of Health heading.

Keep up-to-date on more timely information and partner updates on our Facebook page. You'll also find resources and learning opportunities on our blog pages as well as ways to support our partners and engage in advocacy. To share your info on our Blog and Facebook pages, send content to Terri at anytime.

In appreciation of all you do!

The CHIP Team!