BOH Minutes 112019 - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES - Draft ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH November 20, 2019 S:\Managers Working Files\BOH\Agenda & Abstracts\2019 Agenda & Abstracts/ November Page 2 A. Community and Faith-based Engagement Dr. Lori Carter-Edwards is an Associate Professor in the Public Health Leadership Program, and adjunct faculty of Epidemiology and Health Behavior at the UNC Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health. She leads the development of a statewide model of the Faith-Based Organization Network (FBON), in partnership with the NC Institute for Public Health, the NC Area Health Education Center, and the NC Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities. Dr. Carter-Edwards’ presentation covered the history of research interventions in faith settings in NC, distinguished between faith-placed and faith-based interventions, and provided some principles of community engagement. Below are some highlights. • The faith community has served an important role in health promotion in NC for 40 years. • NC is located in the Bible Belt, meaning faith-based organizations can be significant influencers and health promoters in their communities. The emphasis on faith-based organizations as sources for promoting health programs and interventions, particularly in Black communities is indisputable. • Maximize opportunities for community engagement by increasing emphasis in understanding faith-based organizational networks and their capacities to promote health. • Dr. John W. Hatch had many publications regarding the black church and its role for health promotion in the community. • Interventions were defined as faith-placed if health professionals used the church or a similar secular arena to test an intervention. Faith-based interventions were a part of the church’s health ministry, targeting the faith aspect bringing a higher being into the intervention (e.g. God). • Faithful Families provides funding to churches to help promote their goals. They recognize that faith communities play a special role in supporting their community’s health and decreasing health disparities. Faithful Families builds on the connection between health and faith at multiple levels of the socioecological model. Program facilitators and lay advisors help faith communities extend their reach into the local community and support community-wide health initiatives. • Community engagement seeks to better engage the community to achieve long-term and sustainable outcomes, processes, relationships, discourse, decision-making, or implementation. We must learn how to communicate and work together while building trust with the faith community. • Remember that the community defines who they are and what they do. We can’t define them. An engagement strategy for leveraging faith community assets for collective impact is working together as a system, not just one faith-based organization but a collection. The BOH had questions that were addressed by Dr. Carter-Edwards. B. Water Safety Initiative Dr. Jonathan Klein, Board Chair of the Dr. Charles van der Horst Water Safety Initiative or Swim for Charlie, and Meg Pomerantz, Executive Director of Girls on the Run of the Triangle, gave a presentation on the initiative that provides an opportunity for every child to be safe in and around water. Below are highlights.