Rural public health workforce training network program - the nebraska association of local health directors (nalhd), located at 800 s 13TH ST

Suite 100, lincoln, NE 68508-3232, https://nalhd.ORG/ is the non-profit association of local health departments (lhds). Nalhd is the applicant organization to the rural public health workforce training network program (hrsa-22-117) under the workforce training track #1 community health support. Nalhd is requesting $1,545,000 in federal funds to support nebraska's community health worker training network (chwtn). Network organizations are: nebraska department of health and human services (dhhs) office of oral health and dentistry (oohd); wichita state university (WSU) center for public health initiatives (CPI); four corners health department (fchd); elkhorn logan valley public health department (elvphd); loup basin public health department (lbphd); north central district health department (ncdhd); northeast nebraska public health department (nnphd); panhandle public health department (pphd); public health solutions (PHS); southeast district health department (sedhd); southwest nebraska public health department (swnphd); and two rivers public health department (trphd). The target service area counties are antelope, banner, blaine, box butte, boyd, brown, buffalo, burt, butler, cedar, chase, cherry, cheyenne, cuming, custer, dawes, dawson, deuel, dixon, dundy, fillmore, franklin, frontier, furnas, gage, garden, garfield, gosper, grant, greeley, harlan, hayes, hitchcock, holt, howard, jefferson, johnson, kearney, keith, keya paha, kimball, knox, loup, madison, morrill, nemaha, otoe, pawnee, perkins, phelps, pierce, polk, red willow, richardson, rock, saline, scotts bluff, seward, sheridan, sherman, sioux, stanton, thayer, thurston, valley, wayne, wheeler and york. Nalhd has been building capacity with lhds in rural nebraska since 2010 and works to amplify the impact of lhds by leveraging resources, pursuing organizational excellence, facilitating peer LEA rning, and building collaborative systems. Nalhd works with all the lhds in the state and has undertaken many workforce development initiatives to build LHD capacity to improve health outcomes in underserved populations (including persons with limited health literacy, behavioral health issues, and veterans). Nalhd's rural workforce programs in the areas of health literacy and serving military veterans and their families have been nationally recognized. Vetset, a workforce training project promoting military cultural competency was a 2021 naccho model practice. Nalhd's rural health literacy initiatives were featured in the institute of medicine's 2014 roundtable and report, implications of health literacy for public health, and were a 2017 naccho promising practice. Nalhd has the expertise and competency to address these issues, not just when receiving federal funding but after federal funding ends. We have sustained these focus areas years past the end of the initial grants that launched them. Nalhd has the organizational capacity to lead the proposed network and related workforce training. Nalhd's team has the skills, expertise, and relationships for success across the 68 rural counties within the chwtn target area. These rural counties have significant oral health preventative care needs exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic. Nalhd will build on its past workforce training successes and its ability to obtain local funding matches. For this project nalhd has facilitated the gathering of the network partners and leveraged $900,000 in local funding match to help the project succeed and expand its reach. Susan bockrath is project director. Contact her at 402-904-7946 or