CHL 620 Week 3 Community Partnership Plan Example

Clinic, Churches, Colleges and a Medicaid Plan: Planning the Partnership Behind an East Side Community Health Worker Program

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

CHL/620: Community Health Engagement and Organizing

Week 3 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The partner organizations, roles, agreements, meeting structure and budget shares are composites written for a model paper modeled on Yakima, Washington; research findings come from the sources cited.

The participatory study had found that east side adults delayed care because of work hours, difficulty getting appointments, dependence on adult children for rides, fear of bills and past disrespect. The access workgroup concluded that community health workers, trusted residents trained to help neighbors find their way through the health system, could address several of these barriers at once. But the workgroup also saw that no single organization could run such a program well. This paper plans the partnership behind it.

Purpose

The partnership's purpose is to launch and sustain a community health worker program that helps east side adults with chronic conditions get timely primary care, manage appointments, arrange transportation, resolve billing problems and connect with social services, while building a local workforce.

Why a Partnership

Collaboration is expected to achieve more than single organizations can, but it needs a reason. Lasker and colleagues argue that the mechanism giving collaboration its advantage is synergy, the combining of partners' perspectives, resources and skills to produce solutions none could create alone, and they propose a framework for assessing synergy and its determinants (Lasker et al., 2001). The program needs clinical access, funding, trust, training and transportation, which no one partner holds.

Partner One: The Community Health Center

The health center provides clinical care, employs and supervises community health workers, integrates them into care teams and shares appointment data. It brings clinical access and credibility with patients.

Partner Two: The Hospital

The hospital funds the first two years through its community benefit budget, refers patients after emergency visits and admissions and shares data on hospital use. It brings money and referrals.

Partner Three: The Health District

The health district provides training content, epidemiology support for evaluation and links to public health programs such as diabetes prevention and immunization. It brings data and public health expertise.

Partner Four: A Medicaid Managed Care Plan

The largest Medicaid plan in the region agrees to identify members with frequent emergency visits, refer them to the program and explore paying for services after year two if results are good. It brings a path to sustainable financing.

Partner Five: Churches and the Promotora Network

Congregations and the existing promotora network recruit community health workers from the neighborhood, host outreach events and vouch for the program. They bring trust.

Partner Six: The Community College

The college offers a state-approved community health worker certificate in Spanish and English, with evening classes. It brings training and a career path.

Partner Seven: The Transit Agency

The transit agency provides reduced-fare passes for program participants and consults on a proposed bus route change. It brings mobility.

Partner Eight: Residents

Residents who took part in the study and the workgroup sit on the governing council with equal votes. They bring lived experience and accountability to the community.

Partners Considered and Not Included

The workgroup also considered the county sheriff's office and a large employer. The sheriff was left out because residents feared that any link to law enforcement would deter participation. The employer, a major packing company, will be approached in year two about paid time off for medical appointments, once the program has results to show.

Governance

A governing council of eleven includes one representative from each organization and four residents. The council seeks consensus first and falls back to a two-thirds vote; decisions on hiring standards and program priorities require agreement of at least three residents. The health center serves as fiscal agent. A coordinator funded by the hospital staffs the council.

The Memorandum of Understanding

A memorandum of understanding records each partner's commitments, the governance and decision rules, data sharing with privacy protections, how funds flow, how credit is shared in publications and publicity, a process for resolving disputes, a three-year term and how partners may join or leave.

Communication

The coordinator will send a one-page monthly update to all partners, covering patients served, problems and upcoming decisions. Council meetings happen every month during the launch year, then every three months, always in the evening at the community center. Residents on the council receive stipends and materials in Spanish and English, and minutes are posted publicly.

Sharing Resources and Credit

The hospital's funds pay for four community health workers and the coordinator; the health district contributes staff time; the college waives tuition for the first cohort; the transit agency provides passes. All partners are named in materials, and residents present results alongside executives.

What to Expect From a Partnership

Realistic expectations matter. Roussos and Fawcett's review sorted partnership results into three tiers: changes in a community's programs and systems, shifts in behavior across a population and, furthest away, measurable health outcomes. Evidence was firmest for the first tier and thinner for the other two, and the authors described conditions under which partnerships work better (Roussos & Fawcett, 2000). The partnership's first-year goals therefore focus on launching the program and changing practices; health outcomes will take longer.

Features Linked to Success

Engagement research points to specific features. A systematic review of community engagement among disadvantaged populations tied better results to a handful of features, among them genuinely shared power, learning that runs both ways and delivery by workers who share participants' culture (Cyril et al., 2015). The program's workers will be bilingual neighbors, which the evidence treats as a strength, not a compromise.

Conflict and Turnover

The council anticipates conflict over how workers balance clinic tasks with community needs, and over data sharing. Disputes go first to a three-person committee, one resident and two organizational members, then to the full council. To survive turnover, each organization names a backup representative, and the coordinator keeps written records of decisions.

Measuring the Partnership

The council will assess partnership functioning each year with a survey of members on trust, communication, decision-making and perceived synergy, and track results: workers hired, patients served, appointments kept, emergency visits and resident satisfaction.

What a Community Health Worker Does Here

Each worker will carry about 40 patients at a time, meeting them at home, the clinic or a church. Typical tasks include booking evening appointments, arranging rides or bus passes, sitting in on visits when asked, helping sort out a confusing bill, connecting families to food and housing help and following up after hospital stays. Workers will spend most of their time in the community, not at a desk.

Timeline

Months one to three: sign the memorandum, hire the coordinator and recruit workers. Months four to six: training and launch. Months seven to twelve: full operation and first evaluation.

Conclusion

A community health worker program needs clinical access, funding, trust, training, transportation and community accountability. A partnership of eight kinds of partners, governed by a council with real resident power and bound by a written memorandum, can supply them. Partnership synergy explains the value of collaboration, research on partnerships sets realistic expectations and engagement evidence supports hiring bilingual neighbors as the program's core.

References

Cyril, S., Smith, B. J., Possamai-Inesedy, A., & Renzaho, A. M. N. (2015). Exploring the role of community engagement in improving the health of disadvantaged populations: A systematic review. Global Health Action, 8, Article 29842. https://doi.org/10.3402/gha.v8.29842

Lasker, R. D., Weiss, E. S., & Miller, R. (2001). Partnership synergy: A practical framework for studying and strengthening the collaborative advantage. The Milbank Quarterly, 79(2), 179-205. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.00203

Roussos, S. T., & Fawcett, S. B. (2000). A review of collaborative partnerships as a strategy for improving community health. Annual Review of Public Health, 21, 369-402. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.21.1.369