Chase Reece, BSHP '24

To recap, this week I continued identifying and researching specific community health grants for Archway communities to potentially apply for, and I created an onboarding presentation to be used to familiarize newly hired Archway Professionals with the goals and procedures of the Archway Partnership. As I was compiling a list of grant opportunities, I continued to learn how to efficiently find grants that match the needs of a community. The identified grants are from different sources such as federal, private, and state funding, and focus on a variety of issues, including maternal health, health literacy, and substance use disorder prevention and treatment. While I was creating the onboarding presentation, I was able to further my knowledge of community engagement and the specific processes and steps that are carried out to build relationships and trust in a community. By forming relationships with community members and facilitating collaboration between stakeholders, creative solutions are able to be implemented that benefit the community at-large. The community engagement process is further seen through the issue work group model that the Archway Partnership uses. Through this model, the Archway Partnership is able to increase investment and involvement within the community be remaining a neutral third-party that oversees and facilitates discussion. This approach is able to ensure a wider range of voices are heard and leads to better representation and outcomes within the community. Creating this presentation has been a great opportunity for me to learn more about community engagement, and this knowledge will be beneficial as I work to engage rural communities in my future career. The competencies this week’s work meets include:

• 1.1.2: Identify priority populations
  • This was met during the grant research process because I had to identify the communities and populations that specific grants aligned with.
• 6.4.3: Develop communication aids, materials, or tools using appropriate multimedia
• 7.3.6: Provide professional development/training for staff and volunteers
  • Both of these competencies were met through the development of the onboarding presentation. Effective communication skills and the use of multimedia tools were utilized, and the the goal of the presentation is to train new hires about their roles and duties within the Archway Partnership.