Recruitment and retention of a qualified Title V program staff

During the past year, the Section continued to retain highly qualified staff but did see the departure of some personnel. There are new people working in areas of adolescent health, early childhood, newborn bloodspot screening, and in the MCH Epidemiology Unit. In 2019, the Block Grant Coordinator and Maternal Child Death Review (MCDR) Program Manager left the Section for a position leading Injury Prevention work in Alaska. Vanessa Verigin is the new Block Grant Coordinator and MCDR Program Manager. She comes to the Section with experience in child welfare and trauma-informed workforce training. She has a Bachelors in Social Work, a Master’s in Public Administration and is nearing completion of a Master’s in Public Health. Rebekah Morisse continues in the role of Title V MCH Director, and Christie Reinhardt continues to serve as the CYSHCN Director.

The Section continues to have 41.0 FTE of regular, full-time staff including program managers, nurse consultants, epidemiologists, and administrative stuff. No positions were eliminated in the Governor’s proposed FY21 state budget. The State of Alaska is currently on a hiring freeze for positions that are not 100% federally-funded. The Division of Public Health is currently exempt from this freeze due to the COVID-19 response. In addition to the regular staff, WCFH has been fortunate to have additional staffing support in the past year. We have a CDC PHAP fellow who will be working in the Section for two years on the perinatal quality collaborative and the Title V Needs Assessment, among other areas. We added a Research Analyst position (with funding from the Alaska Mental Health Board) to work with the Senior Epidemiologist on child maltreatment surveillance. For the first time, the Section was able to add a paid College Intern position to support the Youth Alliance for a Healthier Alaska. This flexible level position offers scaffolded youth and workforce development, providing an opportunity for a youth graduating from high school in YAHA to support the work of the alliance in a paid capacity. The person selected for the Intern position, Evangeline Dooc, brings experience as a youth advocate and former YAHA member. Evangeline is a pre-med senior at UAA, majoring in Mathematics and Natural Science and minoring in Public Health. Evangeline has a keen interest in Public Health and she intends to study Native American/Alaska Native health and rural community health in graduate school. Evangeline presented at ALPHA and at AMCHP in 2019 on youth resilience and she is passionate about youth voice, resilience, and diversity.

WCFH staff members are highly qualified to deliver services and programs required by Title V, as well as our other grant and special funding streams. During the past year, WCFH hired very qualified and enthusiastic people to fill vacated positions. While the Section has experienced more retirements in recent years, there continues to be a number of long-term staff who hold a wealth of knowledge and experience. Staff members have master's degrees in such areas as public health, public administration, education, nursing, biostatistics, planning, business, social work, organizational leadership, and two people have PhDs. There are several health care professionals on staff including five registered nurses. Prior professional experiences of WCFH staff are impressively diverse, including Peace Corps, public health nursing in rural Alaska, public health internships in developing countries, CDC fellowships, community planning, disability services, parent navigation, advocacy, social work, school nursing, and community health education. The staff collectively bring together their diverse backgrounds, education and work experiences.

The Section envisions an ongoing need for master’s-level trained staff to serve as program managers and leaders and we make an effort to work with the local university, as well as strengthening our network with universities outside Alaska. The Section has maintained membership on the Advisory Committees for the University of Alaska-Anchorage (UAA) MPH program and School of Nursing. One staff member serves on the Alaska Public Health Association Board, which has a complementary goal of improving overall public health workforce capacity in the state. WCFH staff have continued to host students to encourage professional development and to develop the MCH workforce in Alaska. During the past year, the Section hosted nursing students and other interns.

The Division of Public Health is currently in the process of preparing to apply for accreditation. The Title V Director is leading the workforce development group for the Division. In collaboration with other Division staff, they are working to create a workforce development plan for the Division. As part of this effort, she has also been partnering with the HRSA-funded Alaska Area Health Education Center and the University of Washington MPH program on workforce activities.

Training and growth opportunities for Title V program staff and family leaders

The Section held a retreat in April 2017 to update the Section’s Strategic Plan and discuss how each member connects their work to the Section’s mission, vision and values, as well as how the Section’s priorities connect to the overall DPH goals. All WCFH team members were included in this process, including administrative staff. To provide national context for our work, the Section watched an online presentation on MCH Systems, provided by the MCH Public Health Leadership Institute. This past year, the Section has worked with an independent contractor to help facilitate the Title V Needs Assessment, prioritization process, and selection of National Performance Measures.

Ongoing professional and leadership development is a part of the annual evaluation process and staff are encouraged and supported to gain new skills as opportunities present themselves. We support staff taking full advantage of AMCHP’s MCH Leadership Competencies and Workforce trainings and other leadership development opportunities. WCFH staff access the online MCH Navigator for additional training. Multiple staff members have participated in AMCHP’s Next Generation Leaders Cohort, Family Leaders Cohort, MCH Epi Peer-to-peer Cohort, or the Leadership Institute for CYSHCN Directors. The Program Coordinator for the EHDI program, who is Alaska’s Title V Family Delegate, currently participates on the LEND Family Advisory Council, as a core member of the Family ECHO Team and also serves on the Strengthening Families Leadership Team. Multiple staff have attended the Alaska Strengthening Families protective factors framework training and one staff person is a Strengthening Families facilitator. This professional development opportunity is encouraged for all new Section employees. Many staff have also attended the new Blanket Exercise experiential learning opportunity through ANTHC. This program is a participatory history lesson, developed in collaboration with Alaska Native Elders, knowledge keepers and educators, that fosters truth, understanding, respect, and reconciliation among Indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. Finally, all staff participate in the Alaska Division of Personnel and Labor Relations professional development trainings. As the State continues to experience a travel freeze, trainings provided by AMCHP and third party funding for conference attendance continue to be a very valuable resource to ensure continued professional development. With the COVID-19 epidemic and travel restrictions, we anticipate more innovation will be needed in this area.

For many years, WCFH has used Title V funds to organize and co-sponsor with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) the biennial Alaska MCH and Immunization Conference, which many staff attend. The conference brings rural and urban health professionals together to learn about best practices and tools for the prevention of key and emerging MCH and family health issues. The sixth biannual conference was held in September 2018 and offered continuing education credits for physicians, nurses, public health professionals and tribal community health and behavioral health aides. While the next conference had been scheduled for February 2021, it is now being delayed another year due to capacity at ANTHC and will be held in spring 2022.

Title V staff continue to attend the All Alaska Pediatric Partnership’s annual pediatric symposium. This statewide conference attracts pediatricians, sub-specialists and nurses from hospitals, schools and public health agencies and addresses “just in time topics” pertinent to improving health outcomes for Alaska’s children and teen population. The November 2019 symposium focuses on such topics as genetics, environmental exposures, developmental screening, pharmacology, pain management, and behavior in children. Several WCFH team members presented at the Symposium on such topics as adolescent health transition and the Maternal Child Death Review program. The Title V Director also led a discussion with providers on the shortage of pediatric specialty providers in Alaska. The 2020 Symposium was cancelled due to COVID-19, but there are plans for one in October 2021.

The School Nurse Consultant serves on the planning committees of the School Health & Wellness Institute and the Alaska School Nurses Association (ASNA) annual meeting, both of which provide Continuing Nursing Education contact hours. Both she and the Perinatal/Women’s Health Nurse Consultant have been integral in ensuring the WCFH trainings can offer contact hours for physicians and nurses. The Division as a whole is working to offer more educational credits for such disciplines as social work and pharmacy.

WCFH has supported workforce development for over 12 years through the Youth Alliance for Healthy Alaska (YAHA) and the new College Intern position. Youth participants learn about public health, the socioecological framework, and the effectiveness of prevention and gain experiences working with people from diverse backgrounds, locations and ages. They learn hard skills such as professional writing, developing presentations and video making, as well as soft skills including coordinating group work, time management and navigating differing opinions effectively. Many previous members have pursued academic and career paths related to public health.

Innovations in staffing structures and workforce financing

WCFH has been strategic and innovative when exploring funding opportunities. We have stayed in close communication with partners and those in other states to look at shared funding to support programs and positions. Alaska collaborated with other Region X MIECHV programs to apply for a workforce development grant for home visitors. Our Section has also continued to leverage funding from the Division of Behavioral Health, the Office of Substance Misuse and Prevention, the Department of Education and Early Development, and the Office of Children’s Services. During the past year, WCFH was also able to utilize funding from Alaska’s new preschool development grant.

Over the past few years, the MCH Epidemiology Unit has sought and received funds from a variety of new partners that have enabled the Unit to diversify its sources of workforce financing. The Alaska Children’s Trust (ACT) pays for personnel time for the MCH Indicators Research Analyst to update Alaska data on the national Kids Count Data Center. Most of the indicators are relevant to Title V and SSDI and are measures the Unit is already calculating and tracking. The work has enabled the Unit to gain expertise in another widely used national data center. In addition, the Unit has received funding to support the ALCANLink surveillance and work related to child maltreatment data. Through a project with Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., Alaska is serving as a feasibility site to study the practicability of linking administrative data to better understand child maltreatment incidence. As a sub-recipient of an NIH grant to Washington University in St. Louis, Alaska’s senior MCH Epidemiologist is supporting a Child Welfare Data SMART collaborative project with three universities. Other funding that the MCH Epi Unit has leveraged with Title V to support child maltreatment work comes from the Doris Duke Foundation, the Alaska Mental Health Board, the National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention and the Casey Foundation.

In September 2018, Alaska was awarded a HRSA Grant to Support Oral Health Workforce Activities, specifically to develop and implement innovative programs to address the dental workforce needs of designated dental health professional shortage areas (Dental HPSAs). Through this opportunity, the Section was able to contract with a Dental Consultant. He brings experience working as a dentist in rural Alaska and within tribal health, along with a Master’s in Public Health.