Assignment

Work with your planning group to create a list of potential assets in your community. It's important to take stock of the strengths of your community, not just its needs. Community assets are important in three ways AS inputs and context for your public health intervention As factors related to successful implementation of your intervention As potential outputs, signaling the impact of your intervention

Public Institutions and Services Public schools Police and fire departments Libraries Parks and recreation

Adapted from Healthy People 2010 Toolkit: A Field Guide to Health Planning. Developed by the Public Health Foundation, under contract with the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office of Public Health and Science, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (p. 71). McKnight, J. L., Kretzmann, J. P. Mapping Community Capacity. The Asset-Based Community Development Institute, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, 1996. Bartholomew, L. K., et al. Intervention Mapping: Designing Theory and Evidence-Based Health Promotion Programs. Mayfield Publishing Company, Mountain View, CA, 20

Below is a partial listing of the many public, private, and volunteer organizations that could be valuable partners in your public health efforts. Start by searching online for businesses and

The Importance of Mobilizing Partners

Now that you have assessed the needs of your community and have started to develop a plan, how do you ensure your health program will be successful?

Rallying partners within the community is vital to the overall success of public health programs. This part of program development is often referred to as Mobilizing Partners. Many successful health programs have incorporated this step into their program planning models. For instance, Healthy People 2020 implements the simple and direct MAP-IT planning models.

For this Discussion, consider the role and importance of Mobilizing Partners in your public health program.

To Prepare for this Discussion:

• Review Chapter 2 and 9 of the McKenzie text and the Healthy People 2020 Potential Partners PDF and think about the importance of mobilizing partners.

• Review the CDC's Healthy Communities Program Success Stories websites. For the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control website, select the "Search Stories" tab. For Adolescent and School Health website, scroll down the web page to the "Search Program Success Stories" section.

• Select a story that involves a topic of interest to you.

• Consider the role of partnership (the Mobilize step) in implementing the program highlighted in the article.

• Think about what other factors (Assess, Plan, Implement, Track) contributed to the program's success.

Post a brief description of the success story you selected. Then describe the role of mobilizing partnerships in the implementation of the program and explain why this was essential to the program's success. Finally, explain one way Assessing, Planning, Implementing, or Tracking enabled the program to succeed. Support your response using the Learning Resources and current literature.

Note: Initial postings must be 250-350 words (not including references).

Read a selection of your colleagues' postings.

Your written Assignments must follow APA guidelines. Be sure to support your work with specific citations from this week's Learning Resources and additional scholarly sources as appropriate. Refer to the Essential Guide to APA Style for Students to ensure your in-text citations and reference list are correct.