During FY22, the following programmatic strategies and activities have been identified as methods to advance and improve outcomes.

In July 2020, VDH began funding the implementation of Get Real: Comprehensive Sexual Education That Works, an evidence-based comprehensive sexuality education curriculum for middle and high school students.  Three grantees receive funds:  Virginia League for Planned Parenthood (central Virginia and Newport News), Planned Parenthood of the South Atlantic (Charlottesville, Roanoke and New River Valley), and Eastern Virginia Medical School (Norfolk).  Each of these grantees implement Get Real in communities where the teen pregnancy rate is higher than the state averag3e.

FY21 was the first full year of the grant, and grantees faced a myriad of challenges reaching youth due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  In FY22, grantees will focus on continuing to serve young people through the avenues they used in FY21, adjusting and possibly expanding their services:

• Planned Parenthood of the South Atlantic (PPSAT), will aim to serve the same number of youth, but will adjust their partnerships in Roanoke due to partner organizational capacity.
• Virginia League for Planned Parenthood (VLPP) will expand programming to the Northern Neck of Virginia.
• Eastern Virginia Medical School will pursue a mixture of community and school-based programming to mitigate challenges in partnering with the local school system.

In aggregate, VDH’s Get Real program expects to serve 970 young people in FY22.

Injury and Violence Prevention Program (IVPP) Staff will identify new partners to participate in the Suicide Prevention Interagency Group (SPIAG).  SPIAG serves as the primary mechanism for connecting and disseminating best practice suicide prevention information and data.

IVPP Staff will partner with the Department of Education support ongoing suicide prevention efforts through the continued development of school guidance on suicide prevention including detailed planning of resources related to prevention, intervention, and postvention in schools.  Additionally,

IVPP Staff have started work on the Virginia Suicide Prevention Plan across the Lifespan which has resulted in a number of partnerships and identified areas for additional group.  These steps have positioned staff working on suicide prevention funded projects to achieve the activities outlined below for the upcoming grant cycle.  IVPP will continue its work to ensure a comprehensive suicide prevention program statewide by increasing the number of gatekeepers serving disparate populations. 

VDH School Health Program will focus on implementing measures to promote a safe environment.  Providing routine school required immunizations will remain a priority.  VDH School Health will partner with stakeholders to find creative ways to bridge access to vaccines and decrease conditional enrollment, and will encourage school divisions to partner with local health departments and community partners to establish community based routine immunization vaccination clinics.

The School Health Program will continue to provide professional development opportunities for school nurses across the Commonwealth, partnering with UVA School of Nursing, Old Dominion University Virginia Department of Education to identify and develop appropriate professional learning opportunities.

Strategy:  Maintain and expand existing MCH-focused dental education programs to improve oral health for individuals across the lifespan, to include advising on oral health integration in primary care settings, education for home visitors, school-aged oral health education, and emerging needs of adolescents.

New programming specifically aimed at advancing the oral health of adolescents began in FY20. Activities included updating the School-aged Oral Health Curriculum to include emerging topics for adolescents including vaping, and HPV exposure and vaccination and developing trainings and educational material related to these new topics of focus to highlight the importance of vape cessation and HPV prevention to combat oral cancer, as well as early detection of this disease in youth and young adults. Staff will continue this work and identify new partnerships to expand the reach of programming to include advising on oral health integration in primary care settings, education for home visitors, school-aged oral health education, and emerging needs of adolescents.  Staff will also continue to provide pertinent MCH related information to partners as a member of the Early Dental Home Workgroup and Project Immunize Virginia. The Early Dental Home Workgroup consists of partners from dentistry, early childhood education, and perinatal and pediatric health, as well as state agencies that offer social and health support services. The workgroup identifies promising practices and techniques to increase the number of young kids and pregnant women who access dental care. Project Immunize Virginia (PIV) is a team of energetic and innovative health professionals, business, and community members that believe every community in the Commonwealth can be free of vaccine-preventable disease by increasing immunizations across the lifespan. PIV achieves this by promoting partnerships and using effective strategies among its member organizations throughout the Commonwealth.

Strategy:  Sustain network of regional Oral Health Alliances to foster regional efforts and initiatives throughout the Commonwealth and distribute mini-grants for implementation of systems change and data-sharing initiatives to improve the oral health of all Virginians, with emphasis on pregnant women, and children and adolescents ages 1-17.

VDH will continue to partner with the VHC to foster regional efforts and initiatives throughout the Commonwealth.  Catalyst will work with the alliances to support development and implementation of regionally-identified projects, including projects from partners in far Southwest Virginia, through a micro-grant program; leverage Catalyst’s Clinical Advisory Board (CAB) and expert consultants to provide clinical guidance and education to the micro grantees;

assist micro grantees with developing an evaluation component for their projects; share regionally-specific data; enable information-sharing among state and local partners and regional alliance members to inform the plans and implementation of local and statewide activities; ensure alignment between regional and statewide initiatives, as applicable; and develop and disseminate communications to spur replication of promising practices, share data and 

surveillance information, and elevate issues related to oral health access and integration.

Strategy:  Convene statewide groups focused on targeted oral health issues and facilitate collaboration and work plan development, and provide leadership and oversight to guide initiatives

VDH will continue to partner with VHC to convene statewide groups to advance health equity, care coordination, and systems-change approaches that increase access to integrated, comprehensive care that includes oral health care for children under 17, pregnant women and their families.

VHC will convene a statewide workgroup focused on the future of oral health care delivery in Virginia following the COVID-19 pandemic and considering other environmental changes, trends in healthcare, and policy forecasts. The VHC will continue to engage a wide variety of partners to assemble participants including the Department of Medical Assistance Services, an MCO, maternal health providers, dental providers, and other community partners, while also leveraging the Catalyst’s Clinical Advisory Board (CAB) to provide expertise on the statewide future-focused workgroup. The VHC will also engage other clinical expertise, as needed, to offer additional technical assistance and guidance to the workgroup. HRSA Oral Health Workforce Grant funds will be leveraged to continue to implement a pilot program aimed at putting the workgroups ideas into action through a contract with a safety-net site to carry out future-focused projects including developing teledentistry capabilities to improve access to care.

VDH continues to partner with the VHC to convene a state-wide group focused on enhancing water equity in Virginia. The Water Equity Taskforce (WET) aims to enhance water equity across Virginia to ensure all residents have access to safe fluoridated tap water. In addition to DHP staff, WET engages a cross-sector of partners including representatives from the Office of Drinking Water, the Virginia Department of Forestry, the Virginia Department of Social Services, as well as rural and urban safety-net dental providers, professional dental and dental hygiene associations, and service organizations for health youth and low-income families. WET currently has two workgroups that were formed, one on access and affordability and the other on consumer literacy. A priority for the group is creation of a Virginia Water Equity Roadmap to serve as a framework for water equity information, priorities, and activities in Virginia. 

VHC will also continue convening the Early Dental Home (EDH) workgroup and collaborate with existing groups working on HPV to ensure oral health is integrated into their approach and goals. Additionally, the VHC will expand community engagement and provide trauma-informed care, oral health and systemic health, and health equity education to providers at the Virginia Oral Health Summit. Annually, the Summit reaches nearly 250 providers, public health stakeholders and caregivers, who attend to learn skills to improve the health and wellbeing of the individuals they serve. At this year’s Summit, Catalyst seeks to highlight the role of health equity and oral health in the COVID-19 pandemic, teledentistry (and telehealth more broadly), health policy at the state and federal level, and innovative community programs, so that attendees can work collectively to increase equitable access to quality health care, with a focus on oral health.

VHC will, for the second time, partner with a consulting team and Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities to provide twelve free racial equity trainings to partners across Virginia. These trainings will be virtual to allow partners from across Virginia to participate. The trainings will be offered in three bundles, and each bundle will be offered twice (six total bundles offered).