Table of Contents
Summary
Description/History
Mission Vision and Values
SWOT Analysis
Goals
GHAC Strategic Plan
GHAC Strategic Plan Summary
Grounded in the Mission, Vision, and Guiding Principles of the Gravenstein Health Action Coalition (GHAC), the Strategic Plan summarizes the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis by Board Members and outlines short- and long-term goals for GHAC. GHAC holds equity and the model of Self-Healing Communities as core values, defines health in a broad sense to include personal and community safety, seeks to address the impact of Adverse Childhood Events (ACES) with partnerships with west county schools and youth, and is committed to outreach in the broad west county geographic area, and welcomes involvement from all sectors of the community.
Description/History
Gravenstein Health Action Coalition (GHAC) is a collaboration of individuals, local organizations, and agencies working together to support, policy, system, and environmental change to improve the health outcomes for all residents of west Sonoma County.
GHAC has its beginnings as a Health Action Chapter of the Sonoma County’s Health Action framework for community health improvement and health equity. This framework was used to encourage mobilization of community partnerships and resources to focus on key factors that influence health, including health system effectiveness, the built environment, and social determinants such as education and income. The organization has transformed itself into a not-for-profit organization committed to working together with other leaders of the community to create synergy in our efforts to serve West County.
GHAC is currently comprised of a Board of Directors with representation from organizations such as west county schools, West County Community Services, Graton Fire Services, the Sebastopol Safety Outreach Officer, several healthcare professionals both physicians and RNs, and local businesses (i.e., Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate) as well as a liaison from the Sebastopol City Council. In addition, GHAC also has an Advisory Council with representation from West County Health Centers, Sebastopol Senior Center, PACES and Daily Acts, Whole Child Program, and Sonoma County Public Health Department.
Mission Vision and Values
Vision: West County is a healthy and safe place for all to live, work, play and belong.
Mission: Mobilize and collaborate with community partners and resources to improve equity, health, safety, and well-being for all in West Sonoma County.
Guiding Principles include:
1. Placing equity at the center of all we do by identifying inequities and reducing barriers to improving health, safety, and well-being.
2. Supporting and collaborating with the West Sonoma County community to improve health, safety, and well-being for all.
3. Providing opportunities for building community capacity to improve health, safety, and well-being.
4. Increasing our alignment and collaboration with allied networks of public and private organizations.
The Self-Healing Community Model reflects the path forward to meet our mission and vision. The model was developed in Washington state and introduced into 42 communities from 1994 to 2012. This resulted in a dramatic reduction in the rates of social problems which can create decreased health and well-being in a community. The model uses community capacity to create a culture of health and well-being. Leaders from different sectors work together and community members are welcomed into leadership teams. The community comes together to identify the major problems which have a negative impact on the overall health of the community. The community strives to determine the root cause of a problem. It works to include those who are the most impacted to be a part of identifying what is important and what is needed most. This creates a dynamic cycle of learning, action, and reflection. Learning from reflection starts the cycle again.
2021 Goals/Achievements and 2022 Action Plan
SWOT ANALYSIS
Goals
GHAC has developed both short and long-term goals. Projects have been developed to move these goals forward. Each project honors our guiding principles by prioritizing underserved, underrepresented, and marginalized populations. GHAC has embraced the Self-Healing Community model which requires a continuous assessment of community needs and actions to address those needs. This requires the use of a continuous dynamic cycle of learning, action, and reflection.
Short term Goals
These items convert the strategic objectives into specific performance targets that fall within the one- to three-year time horizon. They state what, when, and who and are measurable.
Goal 1 – Continue to support the following current programs working on known problems affecting health outcomes with resources and dissemination of information through the website, Advisory Council, and local board meetings (school, Sonoma County, City Council, etc.).
Program - Meet Your Neighbor (MYN), formerly Map Your Neighborhood, LatinX Outreach Project:
Support the creation and distribution of bilingual disaster preparedness materials and support disaster preparedness in the Latinx community.
Measures of success:
Number of bilingual training classes
Publication of the Spanish version of Meet Your Neighbor
Action Items:
Fund an interpreter for meetings with Spanish-speaking parents, 4 bilingual
classes to be held in the next 12 months.
Take part in Disaster Preparedness events in Graton and Sebastopol.
Program - Tobacco/Vaping Cessation: Support further rollout to accomplish consistent Tobacco regulation throughout Sonoma County.
Measures of success:
Passage of Tobacco Retail Licensure (TRL) for Sonoma County Coordination of information sessions regarding vaping in west county. Decrease of vaping in Analy High School.
Actions Items:
1. Continue participation on the leadership team of Tobacco Free Sonoma County Community Coalition
2. Provide letters of support and presentations to policymakers.
3. Survey of Analy High School students to determine the prevalence of vaping (Intern project).
4. Develop educational material for Analy High School (Intern project).
5. Provide information regarding tobacco use and vaping in English and Spanish when tabling.
Program - PACES Education: Working with community partners and a grant from Sonoma County Vintners Association, schools in West County will receive education on the impact of Adverse Childhood Events (ACEs). The purpose of the Vintners grant of March 2022/23 is to support the mental health of grade school students in West County through PACES education to their parents. The grant views the Covid years as an ACE experience for the grade school students of West County and selected to support parents who can then support their children. SCOE had offered support to teachers and students directly but not to parents. Therefore, GHAC sought to reach out to parents with PACES education to present Resilience as a strategy for positive parenting.
Measures of success:
1. Information conveyed to parents and school staff in English and Spanish.
2. Ongoing support and education extending past the grant.
Action Items:
1. Ensure that the criteria for the grant are met, and increase parent participation.
2. Ask schools how GHAC can continue to be a support to our West County schools (part of the school evaluation).
3. Evaluation given by school administrators
4. Completed report and evaluation of the grant process
Goal 2 – GHAC community needs assessment to determine barriers to and opportunities for improvement of health, safety, and well-being and opportunities for improvement to address barriers.
Measures of success:
Using the WCHC survey and other available data sets to expand understanding of community needs.
Action Items:
Review of existing data to identify areas of opportunity to affect the community
change in Sebastopol as part of the west county leading toward building a Self
Healing Community (Intern project).
Engage and mentor a Graduate student to continue work in data collection and
analysis to determine areas of negative impact on overall health and
opportunities for improvement in Sebastopol (Intern project).
Present findings to Board and City Council.
Goal 3 – Using data from the 2021 Youth Survey to develop partnerships to support additional youth activities and to determine gaps in youth mental health support.
Measures of success:
1. Identification of partners willing to develop youth activities and assist with development. Bring youth activities to fruition.
2. Through Community Assessment, identification of gaps in mental health support for youth and finding partners to support filling those gaps.
3. Initiating an active Youth Advisory Council.
Action Items:
1. Meet with west county School representatives.
2. Support the design and implementation of supports identified in the
exploratory process.
3. Write a grant proposal to support the establishment of a Youth Advisory
Council.
Goal 4 – Senior Project. Collaborate with senior organizations to support senior health and wellness in West Sonoma County.
Measures of success:
1. Identification of needs of seniors in order to determine action items.
2. Identification of marginalized seniors.
Action Items:
Monthly drop-in groups at Sebastopol Senior Center, Agency in Aging,
consisting of Q&A, providing resources to seniors and advocating for yourself.
Establish a space for seniors and elders to have meaningful dialogue.
Goal 5 - Community Outreach to meet our goals.
Recruitment
GHAC Board
Measures of success:
Recruit 2 new board members with varying backgrounds and representation of a larger sphere of influence (i.e., rural, and coastal communities).
Action Items:
1. Develop packets for member recruitment for the Board.
2. Continue to network with community leaders to identify possible new members.
Advisory Council
Measures of success:
Maintain open invitations to the Advisory Council.
Action Items:
1. Develop packets for member recruitment for the Advisory Council. 2. Continue to network with community leaders to identify possible new
members.
Website – Continue to maintain the current website and upgrade with identified materials in both English and Spanish text and videos.
Measures of Success:
The website is accurate and up-to-date for all projects.
Action Items:
1. Ensure website maintenance with a webmaster.
2. Recruit a bilingual Web designer.
3. Use of website as part of recruitment strategy.
Community Participation through activities sponsored by organizations and agencies of West Sonoma County.
Action Items:
1. Identify individuals able to connect with west county communities including coast and river areas to develop representation program linkages and opportunities from all parts of west county.
Long-term Goals (3 to 5 Years)
Long-term goals/priorities/initiatives: These items convert the strategic objectives into specific performance targets that fall within the three- to five-year time horizon. They state what, when, and who and are measurable.
Goal 1 – Continue to identify barriers to a Self-Healing Community through data and explore resources available to help the west county community achieve a self-healing community.
Goal 2 – Continue the work of short-term goal #4 to work with community organizations to leverage resources, find funding and find grant opportunities to move forward on areas identified by community assessment of data.
Goal 3-- Create community resiliency by including diversity in Meet Your Neighbor education and implementation.
Develop a Spanish team of MYN instructors. Recruit Spanish-speaking GHAC membership.
Goal 4 -- Act as a conduit to connect people with the resources that meet their needs, prioritizing specific populations when the need is apparent.
Goal 5 --Maintain an ongoing relationship with the west county school systems. Support the creation and development of a Peer Mentoring Program in west county schools.
Goal 6 --Create a virtual, user-friendly presence to show data-driven identification of threats to health and safety. Include Spanish explanations on website.
Goal 7 -- Continue to partner with Sebastopol Senior Center to assess the needs of seniors and garner support for those needs.