Monday, October 7, 2024
10/7/2024
Riverside University Health System - Public Health (Riverside County Public Health) serves a diverse population facing multiple public health challenges and would greatly benefit from this funding’s support to hire, retain, sustain, and train the public health workforce and strengthen the department’s foundational capabilities. In the decade prior to the SARS-COV-2 pandemic, state and local health departments experienced a loss of over 20% in their workforce (Public Health Alliance of Southern California, 2020). The public health workforce and funding shortages have been a well known and difficult to address challenge facing local and regional public health departments for many years. The purpose of the project is to collaboratively coordinate critical improvements to public health infrastructure, including development of a public health workforce development plans, increased capacity for grant management and local community organization technical assistance, expanded epidemiology and program evaluation capacity, the creation of a dedicated community health worker team, development and implementation of a violence prevention program, public health re-accreditation efforts, and quality improvement & lean process improvement efforts. This funding represents a unique opportunity for RUHS to broaden and further support the existing health equity work and develop dedicated units for community health work and bioinformatics. All planned work for component A has been grounded in data driven planning and implementation, the critical role of partnerships to inform workforce development and key infrastructure improvements, and the absolute imperative that resources be directed, managed, and utilized in a manner that supports health equity. A1 Workforce Project Abstract Elements: A1 funding will be utilized to support 33 new key public workforce positions which will support RUHS’s efforts to partner with local community based organizations to accomplish the following key tasks to expand and support public health workforce in Riverside County: - Assessment of public health infrastructure and workforce capacity across Riverside County - Development of two workforce development plans, one focused on workforce recruitment and one on resiliency and sustainability - Offering of recruitment and retention stipends to support workforce development - Expansion of the public health workforce including creation of a community health worker unit to support health education and community outreach across branches - Coordination of community health worker training and certification for the internal CHW team and CHWs working with local community based organizations - Collection and analysis of program related evaluation data as outlined in the application - Fund staffing for public health re-accreditation and lean quality improvement work (A2 activity supported by A1 staffing) A2 Foundational Capabilities Project Abstract Elements: RUHS will utilize staff support from component A1 Workforce funding as well as component A2 funding to work with local organizations to accomplish the following tasks to expand and support public health foundational capabilities infrastructure: - Develop, implement, and evaluate a technical assistance program to support local community based organizations (CBOs) with grant management, fiscal management, budgeting, and reporting. - Conduct lean quality improvement work to address key gaps and opportunities for improvement, including the convening of community based organizations (CBOs) and stakeholders to provide -recommendations for process improvement - Complete activities for successful public health re-accreditation - Develop, implement, and evaluate a comprehensive violence prevention program The A2 planned activities include a strong collaboration focus with an ultimate aim of working to benefit community based organizations and county residents through creation of sustainable positions and programming.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
