Increasing Identification of Resources in Kane County and Improving the Sharing and Leveraging of These Resources to Achieve Community Health Improvement Plan Priorities

Kane County community partners have a history of showing strong support for the health department but were less likely to share resources and to follow through on assigned tasks. Identification of community resources and leveraging them would result in increased productivity and reduce duplication of efforts to achieve Illinois Project for Local Assessment of Needs (IPLAN) goals.

An inventory of community resources/partnerships that contributed to our IPLAN priorities was conducted using Himmelman’s matrix. Partnerships were classified based on levels of relationship.

Using force-field analysis to identify our driving and restraining forces and prioritizing forces of change, it was determined that reducing lack of follow-through and increasing meeting productivity would lead us to our ideal state: “we participate in meaningful community partnerships that are productive and objective-based with appropriate agencies creating mutually beneficial outcomes.”

Choosing to improve meeting productivity and follow-through seemed the most beneficial because meetings were our main point of contact with partners. Meeting effectiveness was assessed using a modified meeting effectiveness survey.

Intervention: Action agenda was introduced at meetings. This was able to put in focus assigned tasks and thus address follow-through in a nonthreatening manner.