Our History

The healthy community movement began in Europe by the World Health Organization and arrived in the United States in 1989. Throughout the 90's, communities found new ways to improve their health status and quality of life. The movement centers on communities working together on a positive vision of health through prevention rather than correcting ill health. This important distinction is requiring communities to create shared visions of their future and to bring together all the assets in the communities to improve health. Health continues to be defined broadly. It emphasizes population health issues, including such determinants of health as social issues and education as well as traditional health outcomes such as reduction of breast cancer, ischemic disease, etc. Today, 75 countries and 3,000 communities are involved in the movement.

This movement goes by many names and has multiple focuses, yet they all share common principles. These focuses are determined locally and are implemented in a manner conducive to local change. The underlying notion is that well-informed people working together in an effective process can make a profound difference in the health and quality of people's lives. This movement is distinctively different because of the focus on collaborative, long-term, "root cause" problem solving. It focuses equally on content (the issues) and process (how issue is addressed). This movement is not related to any one political, religious or social organization. (Clough & Associations, 2004)

Communities that come together around a new vision for health and ways to achieve it are more likely to acquire resources and support for their community. Certain grants are targeted to states and communities that are measurably assessing need and identifying health priorities that will impact quality of life for citizens. The largest example of this can be seen in the Robert Wood Johnson/Kellogg Foundation Turning Point partnership. In 1998 partnerships were awarded significant grant monies in 14 states and 41 communities to transform how public health was delivered in our nation. The State of Nebraska, the Buffalo County Community Partners and a second 9-county community in Nebraska were selected as Turning Point grant recipients. The Buffalo County Community Partners were awarded $60,000. In recognition of this award the State of Nebraska also awarded the Buffalo County Community Partners $20,000.

There is an increasing national focus on measurement of outcomes, building community partnerships, and developing tools that help communities show cause and effect between initiatives and improvement in health status. Other outcomes include the process, community collaboration advocacy and social capital development.

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Buffalo County History

Our community health status improvement initiative, Buffalo County Community Partners, is a county-wide effort located in central Nebraska. Kearney is the county seat and comprises 28,195 of the 40,882 people who live in Buffalo County. The county relies on agriculture, industry and tourism to stimulate growth of the county. Buffalo County Community Partners was one of the first projects of its kind in Nebraska. The partners draw upon old-fashioned grassroots problem-solving, as well as looking to the latest in community architecture, to knit our community together into a creative, future-oriented, inviting place to live and work.

Our vision is that everyone from all corners of Buffalo County work together to improve the quality of life of those who live in and work in this community. Our mission is to assess, promote and strengthen the health of Buffalo County as defined by the World Health Organization.

Our project began in the fall of 1994. After 12 months in the planning and assessment stage, the original 25 member Partners Group created five Task Forces (vision element committees) to develop a set of health status improvement goals from issues identified from the community assessment.

Fifteen goals for enhancement of health and quality of life were developed in early 1996. Each goal has a stated outcome, supporting rationale and baseline data and target to be attained for 2001.

The specific long term outcomes of the project include:

• Progress toward becoming a healthier community through achievement of the project goals.
• Increased collaboration between community organizations and reduction of gaps in community services and duplication of services.
• Help facilitate the community in moving along a continuum: fragmentation to alignment to consolidation to integration.

15 goal work groups encompassing 200 volunteers attained 50% of these 15 priority health goals by 2001. $290,713 was granted to community coalitions working toward goal attainment. It is estimated that 70,000 people have been served by these grant programs and services per year.

In 2001, Community Partners asked the community to develop a second round of priority health issues to attain by 2010. Over 500 residents participated in mini-town hall focus groups. The Partners dived into special populations of elderly, youth and minorities. The result of this community process is 10 new priority health goals for attainment in 2010.

The work done thus far by the Buffalo County Community Partners has positioned the county nicely in terms of the national trends toward supporting/funding these types of initiatives.

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Our Structure

The Community Partners receive a multitude of requests annually from other communities around the nation to share our implementation structure. This page will highlight our board's structure and sub-committee's purposes.

Board of Directors: This body is comprised of a cross-section of community leaders representing a wide variety of constituencies such as local government, schools, human services, providers, business and industry, health care organizations, civic groups, churches and consumers. The Board's primary responsibilities are to provide project oversight, set policy, recruit members to the initiative and select the Executive Committee leadership.

• Sue Hunter-Babbitt, R.N. - Two Rivers Public Health Department
• Cindy Shultz - Nurse Practitioner, Ravenna Medical Clinic
• Robert Smoot - VP of Mission Integration, Good Samaritan Health Systems
• Dr. Carol Renner - Associate Superintendent, Kearney Public Schools
• Carol Schwarz - Extension Educator, Buffalo County Extension Service
• Dr. LeAnn Obrecht - Director Student Health and Counseling, University of Nebraska at Kearney
• Lisa Reese Parish - Executive Director, United Way
• Sherri Hansen - Community Planning Director, Community Action Partnership of Mid Nebraska
• Elaine Wiseman - Executive Director, Kearney Housing Agency
• Kent Greder - District #7, Buffalo County Board of Supervisors
• Luke Olson - Management Assistant, City of Kearney
• Doug Kramer - DMC Coordinator/Administrator, Buffalo County Juvenile Services
• Greg Shea - President, Kearney Area Chamber of Commerce
• Robyn Jackson - Human Resource Officer, Platte Valley State Bank
• Julie Speirs - Vice President/Marketing and GM, Kearney Hub
• Dave Glover - Office Manager, Family Practice Associates
• Marcia Ranney - Community Member
• Ismael Torres - Peer Health Educator, University of Nebraska at Kearney

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Executive Committee

The Board of Directors will have an Executive Committee made up of the Board's Chairperson, Vice Chairperson, Past Chairman, and Secretary/Treasurer and ex-officio members as the Executive Committee deems appropriate. The Officers of the Executive Committee will be the only voting members of the Committee. The primary responsibility of the Executive Committee will be to focus on operational issues, supervising the activities of the PARTNERS lead staff person, Board development/orientation, and generally serve as a working committee for the Board.

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Board Committee Structure

Committees of the Board will be Planning and Measurement Committee, Resource Committee, Implementation Committee and Marketing Committee. These Committees may have subcommittees attached to them. The Committee structure of the Board is as follows:

Planning and Measurement Committee: This Committee will be responsible for providing the Board with long-and-short-term planning direction so as to maintain the viability and effectiveness of the PARTNERS' vision. This will be accomplished by creating an annual Operating Plan and facilitating the education of the Constituency Groups and the Goal Work Groups in order to keep the project's memberships current with healthier communities principles and trends. The Planning and Measurement Committee will work closely with the Resource Committee to develop an annual budget to support the annual Operating Plan.

The Planning and Measurement Committee also will be responsible for measurement activities related to the project. This Committee will primarily focus on the project's goals through the establishment of baseline data and annual determination of rates of change. The group will also have the responsibility of recommending to the Board any additions, deletions or modifications to the PARTNERS' goals. Coordination of community surveys, and the provision of specific support related to data and measurement to other Committees will also occur through this Committee.

Resource Committee: This Committee has functions related to identifying, enhancing and deploying community resources: financial, human and others. This Committee will ensure the long-term funding of the project's infrastructure and may assist community organizations in acquiring external funds to support the project's goals. A Resource Plan developed by this Committee will outline the means and methods related to both human and financial resource acquisition. The specifics of this Committee's charge will be further developed once the group has come together to discuss its contribution and role. The Resource Committee will work closely with the Planning and Measurement Committee to develop an annual Operating Plan and budget.

Implementation Committee: This Committee's responsibility is to ensure the advancement of the PARTNERS' vision and goals. This Committee will oversee the priority Goal Work Groups that arise from the four Vision Elements (Sense of Community, Well Body, Mind & Spirit, Nature and Environment, and Economy) and an Action Summit Sub-committee (please refer to attached Organizational Chart).

Recruitment to Goal Work Groups will primarily be by constituency. The seven key constituencies are:

• Education
• Civic Groups/Churches/Consumers
• Governmental Agencies
• Business and Industry
• Human Services Agencies
• Providers
• Health Care Organizations

These constituencies will be prime mechanisms to provide the Goal Work Groups support and person power to carry out their charge. From time to time they may also be responsible for educating and recruiting other members from their respective groups in order to ensure broad-based community participation. The attached organizational chart illustrates this process.

The Goal Work Groups will have the primary responsibility of advancing the goals of the project. Each Goal Work Group will include a member of the Implementation Committee who will act as a liaison to the Goal Work Group from the Implementation Committee and to the full Board of Directors.

There will be a standing agenda item at each Implementation Committee meeting to review the level of community involvement from each of the constituencies and goal areas. This will be done to ensure the involvement of a broad cross-section of the community on the Goal Work Groups.

It will be the responsibility of the Implementation Committee to identify for the PARTNERS' Board when "targeted recruitment" needs to be done. It will also be the responsibility of the Implementation Committee to ensure that mechanisms are in place to educate new members.

The Implementation Committee will also have an Action Summit subcommittee. This group has two primary responsibilities. The first is the development and implementation of the project's annual Summit and production of the annual community report. The second is to ensure the project's goals and activities are communicated to the residents of Buffalo County by liaisoning with the Marketing Committee in the development and implementation of a marketing plan.

Finally, the Implementation Committee may function as a resource to other community organizations and agencies interested in integrating the PARTNERS' goals into their own planning process.

Marketing Committee: This Committee will be responsible for designing, implementing and annually updating a "marketing plan" for the PARTNERS initiative that is focused on ensuring success of the initiative. The Committee will identify the PARTNERS target audience(s) and develop appropriate marketing materials specific to the target audience(s) that embraces an overall theme. Other key pieces to the success of a "marketing plan" are the development of a budget and timeline. In order to determine the most effective approach to the defined target market, the Committee will evaluate the best resources available to PARTNERS to have the greatest impact.

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