Community Engagement & Leadership
Community Engagement in the BYI is lead and facilitated by the Cultural Wellness Center. The community infrastructure for the initiative consists of three “pillars”:
- Citizen Health Action Teams (CHATs)
- Community Com-mission on Health
- Community Resource Body.Â
CHATs are formed by residents to design, implement and evaluate prevention and wellness projects. Each project targeted barriers to health, weaknesses in achieving health, and followed the recommendations outlined in the 2009 community health needs Assessment. In 2011, the CHATs held 173 activities in which 1285 residents participated. The following key themes were identified and implemented across the CHATs:
Strategies to increase social support within their identified communities;
- Strategies to increase social cohesion within the Backyard community;
- Strategies based on their knowledge of problems and solutions and based on their skill set;
- Inventory of assets based on their social and cultural capitol.
The Community Commission on Health is a 35 member body, primarily made up of residents, that serves as the leadership body for the Backyard Community. The Commission is accountable for realizing the community”'s vision on health and for keeping an ear to the pulse of the community. In 2011, the Commission approved five new CHAT projects, deve-loped financial principles and practices, and implemented processes for evaluation of CHAT prevention and wellness projects.
Adopted Cultural Wellness Center Leadership Development Curriculum in which 45 community members were trained in the CWC model of engaged community leadership which was adopted by the BYI and are now functioning as leaders.
Community Resource Board is an advisory group that interfaces with the Commission and residents to increase the scale of the work of the BYI. Mutually sharing resources including knowledge, research, and relationships, and social, cultural and financial capital, the CRB strengthens the Backyard Initiative”'s connections to local and national leaders in healthcare and community development. Members include Twin Cities LISC, BlueCross/BlueShield Foundation of Minnesota, HealthPartners, NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center, and Wilder Foundation. The group was launched in 2011 and met four times.
