Getting Started

Benchmarks Toward Becoming a Healthy Carolinians Partnership

All community health promotion activities require a great deal of planning and commitment. This outline is meant to provide a community group with the steps that will lead them through the planning process to certification for Healthy Carolinians. Community groups are encouraged to contact the Office of Healthy Carolinians for support and technical assistance at any point during the process.

• Form a group of 5-10 leaders to set an initial strategy for organizing a task force and invite others to join the planning group. The purpose of the steering committee is to facilitate the Healthy Carolinians process to achieve certification.

Perform a Community Health Assessment

• Examine the available data on community health status (refer to the community assessments that are regularly administered by the county health department,  local hospital, United Way and other community agencies and organizations).

• Contact the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics for secondary data.

• Survey various community groups, conduct a community forum and focus groups, and administer surveys to collect critical information from your community members.

• Identify and assess community resources (assets mapping).

Convene the community partnership

• Select a group of 20-40 people who represent a broad spectrum of the community. Persons should be selected from various private organizations, governmental agencies, neighborhoods, socioeconomic, and ethnic groups.

• Present findings of the Community Assessment.

• Establish priorities for the community partnership to address. The process to establish priorities should include the broad-based group that will be the core membership of the partnership. The priorities should be determined by the findings of the community assessment and other criteria established by the steering committee.

• Develop an organizational structure and hold regular meetings.

• Develop a plan to expand the partnership membership to bring in stakeholders and partners to work with the partnership to address the priority issues.

• Inform the public about the partnership.

Develop an action plan

A plan must include:

1. At least 2 objectives from the areas discussed in The Report of the Governor's Task Force on Health Objectives for the Year 2010. Objectives must be measurable and realistic.
   
2. Strategies to reach the objectives. These strategies can focus on individual behavior change, changes in the environment or changes in policies.
   
3. Strategies to build coalition skills of partnership members.
   
4. Methods to involve community members in program development, implementation and evaluation.
   
5. A mechanism to keep the public informed about the work of the partnership.
   
6. A method to secure resources (funding, volunteers, in-kind support) to assure success of action plan.
   
7. An establish a set time frame for implementing projects.
   
8. Identification of partner roles in carrying out strategies.

Apply for Healthy Carolinians Certification

• Contact the Office of Healthy Carolinians to get information about the certification process.  Completed applications are due in the Office of Healthy Carolinians in May. The Governor’s Task Force reviews the applications and determines eligibility for certification. Certifications are awarded at annual Healthy Carolinians meetings in October.

Implement plans. Monitor progress. Evaluate projects. Take time to celebrate successes.