The Nebraska public health system provides training on evaluating health promotion programs and policies.
Why Is This Important?
The health promotion subgroup discussed a need to help show the value of public health to the public, stakeholders and funders. The group focused on a need to increase our ability and follow through on evaluation of programs and projects.
According to the Public Health Accreditation Board, maintaining a competent public health workforce requires qualified public health workers that sufficiently meet public health needs. Evaluation is important in ensuring that programs are being implemented effectively in order to meet those needs.
Story Behind the Curve
Nebraska SHIP Priority 3: The Nebraska public health system has expanded health promotion capacity to deliver public health prevention programs and services across the lifespan.
For this SHIP goal, several activities were planned for implementation:
- Complete a needs assessment of the public health workforce.
- Facilitate training programs to support the public health workforce.
How We Impact
In order to ensure this and support the public health workforce, the Nebraska Division of Public Health is coordinating trainings to both state and local health departments on Evidence-based public health practices which include effectively evaluating public health programs. Between 2013 and summer of 2015, four trainings have been conducted impacting 159 public health workers.
Strategy
The DHHS Division of Public Health facilitated a workforce development survey and produced a final Workforce Development Plan in 2014. Each Unit was then provided their respective information and were prompted to provide training plans relevant to their staff needs.
This process began with the Office of Public Health Practice at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, College of Public Health (COPH), who conducted a comprehensive assessment of the workforce education and training needs of the DHHS, Division of Public Health. Two surveys, one for administrative support staff and one for all other staff, were developed by a committee that included representation from all Units within the Division of Public Health and from the COPH, Office of Public Health Practice. The surveys were based on a 2010 modified version of the Council on Linkages between Academia and Public Health Practice. After they were piloted and finalized, online surveys were sent to Division of Public Health staff and administrative staff in November 2013.
The results of the survey were used to identify priority workforce education and training needs. Improving the skills and competencies of the Division’s workforce is essential in building a high performance public health system. Fundamental to this work is identifying gaps in knowledge and skills through the assessment of needs and addressing those gaps through targeted training and development opportunities. Health departments must have a competent workforce with the skills and experience needed to perform duties and to carry out each department’s respective mission. This document provides a comprehensive workforce development plan for the Nebraska DHHS Division of Public Health.
*The Office of Public Health Practice also conducted an assessment of workforce education and training needs for local health departments, providing them with their respective results. Local health departments pursued training plans as desired or as determined appropriate.
This scorecard is created to track performance, therefore the demonstration of data (numerical and narrative) describes what we define as success. In some instances, a trend may be moving in the wrong direction, but still may be within our 'Target for Success' area. The use of Color Arrows (and sometimes also Color Bands) help to define the Target for Success and Current Progress.
Green, Black and Red color arrows are used to reflect our 'Current Progress' status.
- GREEN Arrow = We're getting better!
- BLACK Arrow = We're maintaining our position.
- RED Arrow = We're going in the wrong direction.
Green, Yellow or Red color bands are used to reflect our 'Target for Success' zones.
- GREEN Color Band = We've reached our Target for Success!
- YELLOW Color Band = We're making progress, but not quite there yet.
- RED Color Band = We're below our Target for Success.
Data is described with the Time Period, Actual Value, Target Value, Current Trend and Baseline Change %. These mean:
- Time Period - The most current time period for which the data were available.
- Actual Value - The actual level of achievement, the most current data point for the indicator; also shown in a Color Band to reflect if that value is or is not within our Target for Success zone.
- Target Value - The desired level of achievement for the data indicator.
- Current Trend - The direction of progress is shown by a Color Arrow to reflect our Current Progress status, and also noting for how many data points the direction been occurring.
- Baseline Change % - The percentage of change between the baseline data point and the current data point (actual value); also shown with a Color Arrow to describe Current Progress status.
Clear Impact Suite is an easy-to-use, web-based software platform that helps your staff collaborate with external stakeholders and community partners by utilizing the combination of data collection, performance reporting, and program planning.