As Georgia focuses on building capacity to meet the needs of fathers and improve outcomes for families, participation in the MCH Workforce Development Center Cohort 2019 to improve father engagement through awareness across the department and increase access to statewide resources for fathers and their families continued.  Staff and partners worked to build a comprehensive fatherhood engagement plan connecting community and agency partners with state programs and services to create a “father friendly” network to serve fathers.

Over the nine-month period specific goals were accomplished during the MCH Workforce Development 2019 Cohort learning opportunity. A Fatherhood Advisory Group was convened representing various sections of internal DPH and the local public health districts, an academic research institution, community-based organizations, Department of Health and Human Services Department of Child Support Services (DCSS), WIC and a diverse group of consumer liaisons including fathers.

Application was accepted to participate in AMCHP’s Building Emergency Preparedness and Response (EPR) Capacity for Maternal and Infant Health Action Learning Collaborative (ALC), a technical assistance project geared to ensure Title V populations are planned for in the event of an emergency. A select team including members from the Title V team, WIC, Family and Community Supports, Health Promotion Communications, and Women’s Health participated in an eleven-month project to integrate MCH into the state response plan and compile a statewide list of MCH and EPR partners.

Members from the Title V team, Family and Community Supports, and Injury Prevention are participating in HRSA’s Child Safety Now Alliance, to reduce fatal and serious injuries among infants, children, and adolescents, assist with addressing the high rate of infant mortality due to SUID through evidenced-based strategies, engage with other state/jurisdiction colleagues to share successes and challenges and, advance the evidence-base for SUID prevention. The Georgia team selected SUID Prevention to implement and spread evidence-driven strategies and programs to prevent SUID. Participating in the collaborative will allow the program to select an evidence-based strategy to purposefully implement, test, and revise to ensure effective communication to our most at-risk families. Additional perceived benefits of participation in the collaborative involves sharing with colleagues any challenges, receiving feedback to guide revisions and efforts and, hearing about other's successes. The CSLC team’s focus will be to implement and spread the use of home visitors to distribute infant safe sleep educational materials.

If further technical assistance needs are identified through the year, Title V programs will contact the Maternal and Child Health Bureau.