Carolina Engagement Week
MARCH 21-25
Join us during Carolina Engagement Week to learn from community leaders and researchers who are working together to create a positive impact in communities across our state.
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HPDP faculty, staff, and community partners are presenting during five sessions at Carolina Engagement Week. Engagement Week highlights community-driven partnerships powered by state and local community leaders and Carolina faculty, staff, and students.
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Tuesday, March 22, 10-11 a.m
Jess Dorrance; Anita Brown-Graham; Gaurav Dave, M.D., DrPH, MPH; and Alice Ammerman, DrPH
Carolina made a bold declaration last year. After carefully listening to thousands of voices, we would partner with communities in each of the state’s 100 counties to tackle the most pressing challenges coming out of COVID-19. This Engagement Week session focuses on how statewide and community stakeholders think about the success of community partnerships throughout the Carolina Across 100 initiative, especially the first programmatic effort to prepare and connect young adults currently not connected to employment or education with work opportunities. It will make clear why this type of community engagement relies on deep, meaningful collaboration, often between partners and stakeholders who represent different constituent groups, employment sectors, and educational disciplines, who, as a result, may have different priorities for success. The session will include an interactive discussion of why defining, capturing, and evaluating success is such an important aspect of Carolina Across 100. Hear from internal and external stakeholders about what success means to them. Together, we will determine what matters and what we measure. Expect this session to be highly engaging with lots of opportunities for audience members to share thoughts on success and how to measure it. Register for this event.
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Tuesday, March 22, 2-3 p.m
Tamara C. Baker and Jessica Soldavini, PhD, MPH, RD, LDN
The Carolina Hunger Initiative at the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention partnered with the NC Department of Public Instruction on 2021 Summer Nutrition Programs outreach statewide and in rural North Carolina communities. The partnership goal is to increase participation at more than 3,000 North Carolina sites through summermeals4nckids.org, the underused USDA-supported free summer nutrition programs for children ages 18 and younger. The team created customized resources and safely hosted lively youth events promoting summer meals and starring the popular mascot Ray F. Sun 🌞. Learn about strategies for expanding community engagement and access to healthy, appealing meal options — and hear how the project will grow this summer and is recruiting college students for paid internships to help! Register for this event.
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Wednesday, March 23, 11 a.m.-12 p.m
Desiree Murray, PhD; Jennifer Sharpe; and Jeannie Kerr
This presentation will highlight the potential benefits and challenges of engaging schools in new programming during COVID, and how we built a partnership in this context. School district partners/administrators will share their motivation for partnering, how the program aligns with their mission/strategic plan, and how they have supported initial and ongoing engagement from the educators they support, including specific strategies for integrating the program into their schools.
Attend virtually or in person. Attendees can come to the Health Promotion Disease Prevention building (room 236) for the in-person option. If attending virtually, register for this event.
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Thursday, March 24, 1-2 p.m
Tiki Windley, MPA; Earlean Rivers
Community partnerships with academic institutions can often be one-sided in favor of the institution. Data mining for the purposes of funding, publications, and other benefits have historically been the driving force for these partnerships. Community residents are often left with feelings of mistrust, resentment, and distaste for academia. The Community Circles Project in Duplin County began as a series of conversations in which the authentic voices of community residents were respected, leading to open dialogue and a nurtured relationship. Project participants were viewed by the project team and viewed themselves as much more than data. This presentation will showcase how power sharing is mutually beneficial for the community and its academic partner, as shown through a conversation with Ms. Earlean Rivers from Warsaw, N.C. Register for this event.
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Thursday, March 24, 1:30-2:30 p.m
Rachel Cominsky, MPH; Shamiso Kodzai; and Emile Charles
The FFORC (Food, Fitness and Opportunity Research Collaborative) team has been working to recognize the value of multiple forms of communication and dissemination to community partners that extend beyond the written word. One of the team approaches has been to listen to community stories through interviews and informal conversations, which are being interpreted into a variety of products such as video, social media, and photo essays by FFORC research assistants with the guidance and expertise of community partners. Register for this event.
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As we get closer to these events, the Carolina Engagement Week website will also feature virtual posters and pre-recorded presentations, some of which were created by HPDP faculty, staff, and community partners. Check the Engagement Week website or follow HPDP on social media for more stories, presentations, and conversations.
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