Building the National Workforce Capacity in Maternal & Child Health
Building the National Workforce Capacity in Maternal & Child Health
Title V Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant
The Title V Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant (Title V) is the nation’s oldest federal-state partnership, and the longest lasting public health law in the United States. Title V provides federal funds to states and U.S. territories that states match and allocate to programs and services designed to improve the health and well-being of women and children. Guidance encourages states to administer services within a public health systems model, use data-driven practices to achieve results, and maintain strong family partnerships. Since 2014, the Health Resources and Services Administration has funded the National Maternal and Child Health Workforce Development Center to build, sustain and support the workforce tasked with implementing these crucial programs and services for maternal and child health populations.
Title V National Maternal and Child Health Workforce Development Center
Housed within the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina (UNC), the National Maternal and Child Health Workforce Development Center is supported by a diverse group of partners including UNC, the Georgia Health Policy Center (GHPC), the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, and Family Voices. Together, these partners work to collaboratively help maternal and child health leaders and their partners tackle complex challenges through training, collaborative learning, coaching, and consultation. The center offers a menu of services to address a spectrum of workforce needs including:
- Coordinating an internship program for undergraduate and graduate students with placements in Title V programs throughout the various states and territories.
- Supporting teams of MCH leaders as they tackle a complex MCH challenge in their state either through one-on-one engagement or participation in a customized learning journey with a cohort of states.
- Creating opportunities for academics, students, and practitioners to learn from one another and collaborate together by producing an Academic-Practice Partnership Newsletter and sharing related resources, tools, and case studies.
How GHPC supports the Workforce Development Center
GHPC is supporting the center’s work to build workforce capacity in change management and adaptive leadership, evidence-based decision making, systems integration, and equity and engagement. Specifically, GHPC team members provide technical assistance and coaching to state teams by serving as members of the systems integration, evidence-based decision making, and equity and engagement cores at the Center.
- Systems Integration: To ensure optimal maternal and child health outcomes in a time of health system transformation, increased integration and inclusion of partners outside of traditional public health agencies is necessary. GHPC is helping to build the capacity of MCH practitioners to apply systems thinking and tools to identify gaps, leverage resources, and reduce duplication in funding and efforts to improve maternal and child health outcomes. Workforce development in the Systems Integration Core focuses on improving Title V leadership’s capacity to understand and influence public health systems and to utilize systems tools to describe and address complex problems that involve multiple stakeholder groups.
- Evidence-Based Decision Making: This core supports the MCH Title V workforce to make intentional use of evidence throughout all stages of implementation: assessing need and setting goals, selecting innovations and adaptations, analyzing and strengthening implementation supports, evaluating and improving performance, and/or sharing lessons learned and dissemination results. GHPC supports the Evidence-based Decision Making Core deliver tailored training and coaching to Title V leaders and their staff to support the design, delivery, and improvement of interventions that impact local communities and contribute to equitable health outcomes.
- Change Management and Adaptive Leadership: This core area of workforce development focuses on building leadership capacity to practice and promote adaptive thinking and mobilize collective action to improve outcomes in maternal and child health service delivery systems. GHPC worked with partners at the National Maternal and Child Health Workforce Development Center to develop a fourth guided practice as part of the online Leading Through Health System Change Planning Tool that focuses on maternal and child health. This tool helps public health practitioners develop the technical and adaptive skills necessary to strategically plan in a rapidly transforming health system.
- Equity and Engagement: Meaningful engagement of people with lived experience and ensuring equitable processes and outcomes are key to addressing current and emerging challenges in maternal and child health. This cross-cutting core is helping to lead the center’s work to implement an equity framework across the center’s activities, increase the center’s capacity to practice meaningful equity and engagement, and support Title V leaders to center equity and engagement in their systems and programs.
This project is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number 5-UE7-MC26282-10 – National MCH Workforce Development Center Cooperative Agreement ($1,720,000). 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.