Phase 3: Prioritization and Planning
Audio File (6 minutes)
Listen to Dr. Meg Traci, State Expert Advisor for Montana, talk about how she helped Butte-Silver Bow County and Helena community coalition to use the data collected during the Assessment Phase to drive the priorities on which they chose to focus.
The third phase of the Inclusive Healthy Communities Model is Prioritization and Planning, in which you will review your community health assessment data and develop a community action plan that includes policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) strategies for addressing poor nutrition, physical inactivity, accessibility issues, and tobacco use and exposure for people with disabilities within various sectors of your community.
Within the Prioritization and Planning Phase, you will work with your community coalition to
- Review your community health assessment results;
- Prioritize and identify the inclusive healthy living strategies that you want to pursue; and
- Develop your community action plan.
WHY is this phase important?
This phase helps you to allocate resources (e.g. funds, time), and focus more efficiently on community deficits that are of greatest need for the community coalition to address.
You will be able to ensure that the policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) strategies that are included in your community action plan support the changes needed to address the current gaps recorded and identified in the community health assessment results.
WHAT activities take place during this phase?
The Guidelines, Recommendations, and Adaptations Including Disabilitypdf iconexternal icon (GRAIDs) framework, developed by the National Center for Health, Physical Activity, and Disability (NCHPADexternal icon), is a tool you may want to consider to help identify potential inclusive strategies for the community action plan. This GRAIDS frameworkpdf iconexternal icon serves as a menu of inclusive policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) change options specific to addressing healthy eating and physical activity for people with disabilities. While this framework also includes programmatic strategy examples, you may want to just use policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) improvements, since these strategies are more likely to reach larger numbers of people and have long-term impact.
Audio File (10 minutes)
Listen to Dr. Meg Traci, State Expert Advisor for Montana, talk about how Butte-Silver Bow County and Helena community coalitions used the GRAIDs frameworkpdf iconexternal icon to develop their community action plans.
- Help Community Coaches understand how to review and describe the community health assessment results. Ensure Community Coaches review the community health assessment results and understand the assets and gaps at the assessed sites for people with disabilities.
- Community Coaches present this information to the whole community coalition. The presentation of results usually occurs at a coalition meeting, where community coalition members can gain a comprehensive snapshot of community assets and deficits, as well as ask questions.
- The community coalition can use the results from the community health assessment to identify and prioritize inclusive healthy living strategies to be listed in the community action plan. You may want to consider a ” twin approach ” to implement these policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) changes for addressing poor nutrition, physical inactivity, accessibility issues, and tobacco use and exposure for people with disabilities within different sectors of your community:
- Developing population-wide strategies (e.g., community gardens) that are designed to be inclusive of people with disabilities (e.g., raised beds, instructions in alternative formats that are 508 compliantexternal icon); or
- Developing a healthy living strategy (e.g., electric wheelchair charging stations at local parks or county buildings) specific to a functional disability type (e.g., cognitive or mobility).
Audio File (8 minutes)
Listen to Dr. Meg Traci, State Expert Advisor for Montana, talk about how she supported Butte-Silver Bow County and Helena in the development of their Community Action Plans.
- Develop the community action plan , which is a flexible and time-based plan that includes the policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) improvements that your community coalition can implement with additional partners. The community action plan needs to include S.M.A.R.T objectives and related activities aligned to short- and long-term outcomes.
WHO in the community needs to be involved?
Community coaches lead the data review, prioritization, and development of the community action plan, while making efforts to actively involve and listen to input of the community coalition members throughout the process. Short- and long-term outcomes are easier to achieve and sustain when the community coalition can actively participate in each phase.
Not involving the community coalition members in ongoing activities will reduce community engagement and ownership of the project, ultimately limiting the potential community transformation experienced by people with disabilities.
How much TIME does this phase take?
This phase’s activities may occur concurrently with Phase 2 – Assessment and Training – or may be done as stand-alone activities once the community health assessment is completed. If done separately, a timeframe of 1–3 months could be expected for effective data prioritization and development of the community action plan.
What does SUCCESS look like?
See the community action plan templatepdf iconexternal icon developed by NACDDexternal icon for their project Reaching People with Disabilities through Healthy Communities
A successful prioritization and planning process may include the following characteristics:
- A clear understanding of the community health assessment results and the process for sharing the results with the community coalition;
- A collaborative process between community coaches and the community coalition members for identifying and prioritizing the policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) improvements and sectors for implementation; and
- An agreed upon community action plan format for organizing the community coalition’s goals, objectives, and activities.
