Arizona’s Title V Program works to strengthen the family and the community by promoting and improving the health and safety of women and children; leveraging Title V and other federal funds as well as state funds to accomplish this mission. This federal-state partnership forms the bedrock of this work.

Arizona’s Title V Program also collaborates with numerous other public and private partners to achieve our strategies and objectives and meet our priority needs. More information on our partnerships can be found in Public and Private Partnerships, Appendix C - Program Partnership Listing, and in the domain narratives.

Given this broad mandate and the diversity of funding sources and partners, it is not surprising that Arizona’s Title V Program is involved in a large number of activities. The depth and breadth of our role in each activity depends on a variety of factors, including the needs of our communities and partners and our strategic allocation of limited resources (including financial resources and staff time).

The Action Plan narratives that follow describe planned activities for 2023. These strategies and objectives aim to address the priority needs identified through the 2020 Title V Needs Assessment. The Action Plans were developed, in collaboration with internal partners, during a series of strategic Visioning Meetings in spring of 2022. Where strategies are a continuation of ongoing efforts, the team has worked to identify ways to improve or scale up the activities being implemented.

In describing our work, we have tried to be explicit about our role in given activities. The easiest roles to describe are when we are leading or implementing an activity or when we are funding a contracted partner to lead or implement work. The hardest roles to describe are when we are collaborating or partnering with another organization to accomplish a goal, and the program’s main contribution is time. Some partnerships require much more time than others, some require inputs that can be cyclical or seasonal. In some partnerships that time spent is very active and engaged (e.g., workgroups, technical assistance); in others, it is more passive (e.g., representation on a committee).

A key activity of Arizona’s Title V Program is the collection, analysis, and dissemination of MCH data. This data helps us identify areas of need and emerging issues, assess program effectiveness, measure improvement, and channel federal and state funding where it can be most impactful. This data is also important for our community partners. Of particular importance is the data collected through mortality surveillance activities, like the Maternal and Child Fatality Reviews, and data used for the identification and designation of Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) and Medically Underserved Areas/Populations (MUA/Ps).

Family engagement and health equity are two guiding principles that are interwoven through all the work we do. We believe that family engagement is one of the best tools we have to identify and understand health inequities, and to help us address those inequities.