REACH 2010 Charleston and Georgetown Diabetes Coalition Receives 
Community-Campus Partnerships for Health Annual Award

For more information about CCPH or the CCPH award, contact Sarena Seifer at 
206-616-4305 or [log in to unmask] or visit http://www.ccph.info

For more information on the CCPH annual award winner, contact Carolyn Jenkins 
at 843-792-5872 or [log in to unmask] or visit http://reach.musc.edu

REACH 2010 Charleston and Georgetown Diabetes Coalition is the recipient of the 
5th annual Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) Award. The award, 
announced during the closing session of CCPH's 9th conference in Minneapolis, 
MN USA, highlights the power and potential of partnerships between communities 
and higher educational institutions as a strategy for improving health. 
Selected from a competitive pool of nominations, the Coalition is a partnership 
between the Charleston and Georgetown communities and the Medical University of 
South Carolina (MUSC) College of Nursing that is eliminating disparities for 
African Americans with diabetes through community action, health systems 
change, and collaboration. Increased testing for diabetes, decreased emergency 
room visits and decreased amputations in African-American men by 50% are among 
the significant outcomes achieved since the Coalition began in 1999.

"The Coalition demonstrates how community-campus partnerships can  contribute 
to significant health outcomes. The Coalition's focus on community-driven 
education and systems change, supported by trusting relationships, democractic 
governing structures and equitable sharing of power and resources are hallmarks 
of this exemplary partnership that others can aspire to," noted CCPH Executive 
Director, Sarena D. Seifer in presenting the award.  Accepting the award on 
behalf of the partnership were Virginia Thomas, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and 
REACH Community Health Advisor, North Charleston and Carolyn Jenkins, Professor 
of Nursing and Ann Darlington Edwards Endowed Chair of Nursing at MUSC College 
of Nursing. This year's award was supported by Jossey-Bass/Wiley Publishers and 
two journals: Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education 
and Action and the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement.

The Coalition builds on relationships between MUSC College of Nursing and  the 
community that span 20 years. The partnership includes 16 agencies, 
neighborhoods, and people with diabetes and covers more than 1,600
square miles, with over 12,000 African Americans with diabetes. About 40 area 
churches, community centers, worksites, and libraries provide linkages to 
people with diabetes in their communities. Funding is generated by community 
fundraising, coalition activities, grants, and a cooperative agreement from the 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Coalition builds upon the strengths and assets of each partner. The health 
systems provide care but lack the resources for quality diabetes education and 
outreach. MUSC College of Nursing has faculty who are Certified Diabetes 
Educators and the community centers, churches and libraries  collaborate to 
offer diabetes self management education. Public librarians, in collaboration 
with MUSC librarians and diabetes educators, teach people how to use the 
Internet to find high quality diabetes information, while local health 
providers work with people to improve diabetes control.

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) and service-learning are central 
to the Coalition's strategy for change. Over 200 students from the MUSC 
Colleges of Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions, Medicine, and
Graduate Studies, as well as dietetic interns and interns from other 
universities and local high schools, engage in service-learning to assist the 
communities in meeting their goals. Four students have completed their doctoral 
dissertations, learning about CBPR while advancing the Coalition's goal.

Also announced at the conference were 3 partnerships that received recognition 
as honorable mentions:

Brazos Valley Health Partnership. The Center for Community Health Development 
(CCHD) conducted a health status assessment in the surrounding seven-county 
Brazos Valley region of Texas in 2002. Funded by two hospital systems, the 
local health department, the council of governments and the Texas A&M School of 
Rural Public Health in College Station, assessment findings motivated the 
funders and local health and social service providers to establish the Brazos 
Valley Health Partnership. With CCHD offering to serve as both a partner and a 
neutral facilitator, the stakeholders agreed to commit their time and resources 
to develop a collaborative base from which local and regional efforts to 
improve community health status could be launched. The new partnership utilized 
CCHD faculty's expertise and the CCHD student workforce to identify underlying 
health status issues and engage local communities in working with providers and 
other partners to customize successful healthcare solutions unique to each 
community. CCHD faculty benefits from the increased opportunity to conduct 
community-based participatory research in their own backyard while students 
gain immediate hands-on experience in community health development. Since then, 
BVHP has expanded its network to include four community health partnerships and 
five health resource centers, trained fifteen students and supported several 
research projects. www.bvhp.org

The Stepping Up Project is a campus-community coalition composed of  members of 
The University of Iowa and Iowa City/Coralville community. They are dedicated 
to creating recreational and educational programs along with government 
policies to reduce high-risk drinking and its harmful effects. With funding 
from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation administered by the American Medical 
Association, the coalition's approach is to change the environment and help 
solve the problem of high-risk drinking, especially among college students, 
through collaboration and partnerships within The University of Iowa and Iowa 
City community. www.uiowa.edu/~stepping

The Flint Healthcare Employment Opportunities Project was established in 2002 
to develop and coordinate local education, training and skill development 
programs in ways that would simultaneously address employment
barriers for low-income Flint and Genesee County residents while helping 
healthcare employers meet their workforce needs and other significant 
challenges. The FHEO Project provides sustainable employment and
career tracks in the healthcare industry for residents of Flint.s Renewal 
Community through a comprehensive program that encompasses attitudinal and life 
skills training, job-skills development, training in healthcare
occupations, job placement, and mentoring provided by community-based 
organizations and academic institutions. The partnership members include three 
major health systems, two educational institutions, the K-12
school district, the workforce development system, and faith-based and 
community based organizations that serve Genesee County. Primary funding for 
the FHEO Project was initially provided by the Charles Stewart Mott
Foundation with additional funding from the Community Foundation of Greater 
Flint. www.gfhc.org

Nomination guidelines for the 2007 CCPH Award will be released in Summer 2006 
and posted online at www.ccph.info. Partnerships may nominate themselves and 
need not be members of CCPH. Nominations are accepted from any country or 
nation. The 2007 CCPH Award will be announced at the CCPH 10th anniversary 
conference, April 11-14, 2007 in Toronto, ON Canada.

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Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) is a nonprofit  organization 
that promotes health (broadly defined) through partnerships between communities 
and higher educational institutions. Founded in 1996, CCPH is a growing network 
of over 1,000 communities and campuses that are collaborating to promote health 
through service-learning, community-based participatory research, broad-based 
coalitions and other community-academic partnership strategies. These 
partnerships are powerful tools for improving health professional education, 
civic engagement and the overall health of communities. Become a member today 
at www.ccph.info

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