Using Data to Foster Educational Success and a Culture of Health
The 2011 County Health Rankings served as an important communication tool for the organization Mason Matters and its partners. They used the data to build an understanding of the connection between a healthy community and educational success and, subsequently, to launch college and career readiness activities in Mason County. The following is just one sign of progress: through an analysis of available data and using the data as a call to action, applications for the statewide college bound scholarship program have increased significantly in the two years since work began.
The 2011 County Health Rankings placed Mason County 35th of 39 counties in Washington State, spurring a community-wide conversation about health. “We started with broad public health work to let people know about social determinants as a bigger part of health,” said Kimberley Klint, Executive Director of Mason Matters. Soon after, the county’s Community Health Assessment and Community Health Improvement Plan (CHA/CHIP) identified a “trained and prepared workforce with living wage jobs” as the top priority for the county’s health investments.
While high school graduation rates had been improving in the small rural area, a closer look at the data showed that graduates were not progressing to college or other higher learning opportunities. In an attempt to fill this gap, Mason Matters worked with local business, seven of the county’s school districts, and other community partners to develop the High School Graduation and Beyond initiative. Its focus was to engage educators and business leaders in developing college and career readiness activities as part of the school curricula, efforts that supported the organization’s goal of increasing educational attainment levels of the overall population. The initiative adopted an early intervention approach, reaching students in 4th-8th grades.
Klint used Rankings data and background about determinants of health to frame the proposal to potential partners. “We were always making the connection between educational attainment and health. We had to know the data,” she said. “It was crucial to get community champions grounded in this way of thinking about health.”
As they brought other stakeholders to the table, they continued to start conversations by presenting data and talking about what shapes health. “It allowed us to put a different lens on the work so that it matched the priorities on the radar screen for each stakeholder,” she said. “The County Health Rankings language about what shapes health provided a vehicle to make that connection.”
Building on existing relationships, Klint reached out to superintendents, asking them to become champions and “door openers” to other partners in the schools. Joined by administrators, she and her partners focused on how the readiness project could meet new Common Core State Standards. As they worked with teachers on developing and revising curriculum, they helped build an understanding of how classroom learning makes a difference to broader community health. When they spoke with potential business partners, they highlighted college and career readiness as a long-term workforce development initiative.
For others whose work hinges on successful communications and outreach, Klint recommends investing in relationships, grounding the message in research, and connecting it to the piece of the pie that matters to each audience. “In large part, our success is about relationships and always using the health framework,” she said.
To reach Mason Matters, email [email protected] or visit http://www.movingmasonforward.org
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Date added: October 15, 2015