May CHIP Update

Dear Community Partners and Key Stakeholders,

The Spring continues to be busy! We completed 2 additional Talk to Action meetings in April around the CHIP priorities Infant Mortality and Diabetes. Over 80 community members and 7 Advisory Council members have participated. For a more detailed update visit our Spring Talk to Action Updates page.

We are also excited to introduce our newest team member, Deanna LaMotte. Deanna joins our team TODAY after 3 years coordinating Triple P--Positive Parenting Program, a public-health approach to parenting support and child abuse prevention, in Buncombe County. She brings a passion for Community-Based Participatory Research and an Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) lens to all her work. To learn more about Deanna, visit our CHIP Staff Page.

We are pleased to announce that the Reinvestment Fund and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have selected the city of Asheville to take part in the new Invest Health initiative, which aims to improve health in low-income neighborhoods in 50 cities across the nation. 

Asheville was selected from more than 180 teams from 170 communities that applied to the initiative, and is formed of a five-member team: North Carolina Center for Health and Wellness at UNC Asheville, City of Asheville, Self-Help Credit Union, MAHEC, and the Housing Authority of the City of Asheville.  Stacey Millet and Deborah Calhoun have served as a key partners in initial planning efforts and in developing the application, with the NC Center for Health and Wellness serving as the anchor organization. The project will span 18 months, beginning with a national kick-off meeting on June 7.  

Click here to view the article in the Asheville Citizen-Times

Please take a few minutes to read our Update featured sections this month to find out what you can do to share information that supports our CHIP priorities and partners.
This month's Get Involved Action is to learn more about our CHIP communication tools and how you can share information with our partners. Visit our Communication Tools Page for details on what's currently available and how to use them. In particular, we now have a Facebook Page! Take a minute to check it out and Like Us. Also take a moment to bookmark our Buncombe CHIP Blog. Note all our page links are found on the right-hand navigation bar so you can easily find what you are looking for.

Partnership Support this month includes a number of job. The Support Page will be updated each month. However, as long as an event or announcement is still relevant it will remain on the page.

Finally, our Resources You Can Use Page features A New Way to Talk About the Social Determinants of Health from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation which provides research and guidance on how to create more compelling, effective and persuasive messages that resonate across the political spectrum. You'll also resources from the April CHIP Advisory Council presentation on Food Security as well as documents from the April CHIP Update. We will continue to catalog resources in this space.

Please let us know how we can continue to build and improve ways to communicate and share in ways that help us be successful in our work together!

Sincerely,

Deborah, Deanna, and Terri
CHIP Health Improvement Specialist

April 2016 Monthly Update

Dear Community Partners and Key Stakeholders,

Here are April's key take-aways for Partnership Support, Staying Informed, Getting Involved and Resources You Can Use!

Partnership Support

The Beaucatcher Greenway project is a very important for our community and recent misinformation has been spread that may lead to possible termination or delays of the project. This project is part of the River-to-Ridge Connector, which would link the French Broad River and River Arts District to downtown Asheville and Beaucatcher Mountain via a continuous multi-access corridor that sits very near to Mission Hospital and adjacent to the most disadvantaged census track in the City of Asheville. This would pass near or through urban neighborhoods, several apartment complexes, connecting to 30 acres of urban forest overlooking the city above McCormick Field.  This is one part of the Greenways Master Plan which has been passed by City Council, and has been under development for 20 years.  The Beaucatcher greenway was approved by the city in 2010 and design began in 2013.  This would be a 1.25-mile greenway when completed.

From a public health standpoint, as providers and advocates, please inform yourself on the project and consider giving it your support.

A public comment period on the Beaucatcher Greenway will take place before the Asheville City Council meeting on April 12^th.  To provide comment, you will need to sign-in. Comments are limited to 3 minutes unless you are commenting on behalf of others present, in which you be will allowed 10 minutes.

Click here for key talking points in a downloadable handout!

Additional links:

• For and overview of the Beaucatcher Greenway project  http://www.ashevillegreenways.com/beaucatcher#beaucatcher-main
• For information on the Asheville Greenways Master plan:  http://www.ashevillenc.gov/Departments/Transportation/Greenways.aspx
• To comment on the greenway visit Open City Hall,  a new tool to provide input for the City of Asheville https://www.peakdemocracy.com/portals/239/Forum_687/Issue_3532?cookies=detect
• To express your support you may sign Buncombe County Parks and Greenways Foundation’s Petition (note, there is also a petition circulating in the community in opposition to Beaucatcher):  http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/support-beaucatcher-greenway?mailing_id=33574&source=s.icn.em.cr&r_by=15438387

Get Involved

Spread the word or participate in one of our Talk to Action meetings this spring.  Details are found on the Talk to Action - Spring2016 blog page.  We also provide an update of the March 23rd Talk to Action on Food Security & Safe and Accessible Transportation and Recreation. 

Stay Informed

There is ample evidence that greenways can increase physical activity and have a positive impact on obesity, chronic disease and mental health. However, when you google greenways and health benefits you mostly end up with links to information on any number of City and County greenway systems with a few bullets on the health benefits or dense academic articles.  Trust for Public Lands has created a comprehensive but very readable report on the health benefits of parks and greenways. 

https://www.tpl.org/sites/default/files/cloud.tpl.org/pubs/benefits_HealthBenefitsReport.pdf

Resources You Can Use

The 2015 Community Health Assessment is now available on Buncombe County' s webpage.  

This is a tremendous resource and we encourage you to spend a few minutes reviewing the contents so you can quickly refer to it for data needs in the future.  We also want to share a link to the press release on the CHA release as well as the coverage of the CHA and CHIP in the Mountain Xpress.