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Engagement, Accessibility and Inclusion with Garfield County Public Health
By: Liz Young Winne, Built Environment Coordinator
| At our last stop on the mobility assessment, the person using an electric wheelchair couldn’t access the ramp that was in our direct route; they had to enter the roadway to reposition and use a ramp that had a more suitable slope. Seeing the inaccessibility experienced by a group member, we talked about ramp updates and sidewalk repairs necessary for people to safely and comfortably move through the town. | This past winter, the Safe and Connected Built Environment priority coordinators met with Garfield County Public Health’s maternal and child health coordinator to discuss strategies for enhancing accessibility and inclusion in their communities. They wanted to do a hands-on training that highlights engagement, accessibility, and inclusion; a mobility assessment (or “walk/roll audit”) would be the perfect fit! | A mobility assessment (or “walk/roll audit”) uses a crowd-sourced engagement model to capture information about the amenities, perceptions, and realities of safety while moving through an area of a community. America Walks describes it as, “an assessment of the pedestrian safety, and accessibility of a particular area.” | These can be set up in a variety of ways and the overarching intent can vary. The Safe and Connected Built Environment priority coordinators have held these assessments to build partnerships, to find routes, and to collect data. Recently, the Safe and Connected Built Environment team has been using walk/roll audits to identify safe routes to parks in Colorado communities. Most often, mobility assessments are used to highlight changes that can be made to the built environment so people of all ages and abilities can walk/roll, bike, or scooter comfortably and safely in their town or city. | To determine what kind of assessment to do, I always encourage groups to think about what they want to gain as an outcome. Some questions to ask are: Is the goal to encourage involvement in a coalition; is it to write grants to programs like Revitalizing Main Streets or Safe Routes to School; or is it all of those things and more? Choosing a checklist that will work best for your group is essential; some are technical, some are open ended, and some are simple “yes or no.” The next steps are to finalize the route, invite multi-sector partners (community members, engineers, town/city planners, even elected officials), and host the event. Defining the purpose early also helps to figure out the best way to collect and share the data back to the participants and decision makers in your community. | The thing I like the most about mobility assessments is the conversations: it feels natural to “get to know you” as you walk together. These types of assessments are a great way to build and strengthen partnerships; create a stronger case to ensure all people can adequately and comfortably walk/roll, bike, or scooter; and can be used to partner on grant applications that support active-friendly routes to every day destinations. | | |
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2024 Health Links Webinar Series
Join us for our upcoming webinar series! We're covering highly-requested topics ranging from psychological preparedness to ageism in the workplace.
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Targeted Universalism Community of Practice
The 2024 community of practice is an opportunity for participants to grow their targeted universalism (TU) "muscle," build relationships with other professionals across the U.S., and grapple with the challenges and opportunities with planning for, implementing, and evaluating TU. Applications are open until July 30, 2024. Cost: $5,000 per individual and fee reduction scholarships available. Learn more about targeted universalism and apply.
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Statewide Active Transportation Plan Survey
CDOT has released a new survey to help inform the goals and priorities of the forthcoming Statewide Active Transportation Plan. This new plan sets the stage for enhancing biking and walking throughout Colorado and embraces statewide momentum around active transportation investment. The Plan will include goals, policy recommendations, interagency collaboration, and a comprehensive process for evaluating and prioritizing projects which will improve safety, equity, mobility, connectivity, and sustainability across our transportation system. The Active Transportation Plan will also inform the Statewide Transportation Plan, which guides Colorado’s overall transportation vision and investment priorities.
Learn more about the development of the Statewide Active Transportation Plan and take the survey. The survey should take about 5-10 minutes and asks about walking and bicycling habits, preferred pedestrian and bicycling facilities, and barriers to walking and biking. The English survey and Spanish survey will be open through July 31, 2024.
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It’s not too late to get your tax credits!
Coloradans are still able to file their taxes to receive tax credits and their TABOR refunds. You can help connect families to resources by encouraging them to file by the extension deadline of October 15th, 2024. If they haven’t filed their federal and/or state tax return yet, help them get started at GetAheadColorado.org.
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Colorado Safe Routes to School
A new grant funding application period is anticipated to open this August and close in early November. Approximately $7M will be available for infrastructure and non-infrastructure projects supporting communities in providing students and families with safe, accessible means of active transportation to and from school. Over the coming months, the Grant Application page will be updated with information and resources. It is recommended that all interested applicants read the Community Engagement Toolkit as well as the new strategic plan. Both documents offer valuable guidance that will strengthen your projects and applications. Colorado Safe Routes to School Program Manager Melissa Trecoske Houghton is offering 20-minute individual consultations to answer questions and talk to you about your project. Please email Melissa at Melissa.houghton@state.co.us to schedule. Spanish interpretation is available for the consultation.
The 2025 grant cycle:
- Includes funding for all grade levels (K-12) for the first time.
- Increases the maximum award for Infrastructure projects from $750K to $1M.
- Offers 100% funding to projects from qualifying communities.
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Colorado Belonging Barometer
Belonging Colorado, a special fund at The Denver Foundation, announces the launch of the Colorado Belonging Barometer, a pioneering initiative to measure the sense of belonging among Coloradans. This effort, in collaboration with the Colorado Health Institute (CHI) and Over Zero, marks the first time belonging has been assessed at the state level, providing crucial insights into the social fabric of Colorado communities.
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Equity 2.0 - Targeted Universalism Learning Journey
In December 2023 Melissa Leal (moving upstream strategic anchor lead) began sharing learnings about targeted universalism (TU). Last month we continued to take a deeper dive into the action steps of the TU framework, which we will continue for the next few months.
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Deeper Dive: Targeted Universalism Stages
- Co-create a universal goal.
- Assess the general population’s performance relative to the universal goal.
- Assess all segment groups’ performance relative to the universal goal and situatedness.
- Assess and understand the structures and systems that support or impede each group from achieving the universal goal.
- Develop and implement targeted strategies so all groups reach the universal goal.
- Develop bridging stories and messaging that support strategies.
- Conduct ongoing evaluation/measurement of impact relative to the universal goal.
| Once we understand how structures and systems situate groups differently relative to the universal goal, we can develop tailored strategies to support each group in reaching the universal goal. It’s important to remember that cocreation is essential throughout the process. More about targeted strategies below.1 | |
Targeted strategies…
- should be outcome-oriented and measurable.
- draw on a combination of knowledge, experience, and data.
- should represent a range of strategies to advance all groups.
- resist reduction to a single approach.
- are an opportunity to identify and strategize leverage points that reverberate throughout systems and across groups.
- include prioritizing, phasing, and resource distribution based on greatest need and/or distance from the universal goal.1
| 1 “Targeted Strategies” by Seed Collaborative and The Belonging & Cocreation Lab, February 2024 | Come back next month to continue diving deeper into the next action step of the TU framework. Please reach out to Melissa Leal with any questions about targeted universalism, moving upstream, or change management. | |
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The Title V Maternal and Child Health Program (MCH) works with statewide partners and local public health agency representatives to improve the health of Coloradans using population-based and infrastructure-building strategies. Our mission is to optimize the health and well-being of mothers and children by employing primary prevention and early intervention public health strategies.
This project is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the Colorado Maternal and Child Health Block Grant 6 B04MC45202. This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.
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