5-Minute MCH: Module 12.3

1. How to Advance Yourself as an MCH Leader (Self-Reflection Strategy). Identify your personal strengths and areas of growth by taking 5 minutes to register/log-in to the MCH Navigator's Self-Assessment and answer questions related to Competency 12: Policy and Advocacy.
2. How to Find and Use Tools to Help You (Information Strategy). Policy is one potentially effective way to improve the health of populations. Can you summarize your role in translating evidence and science into policy? This website describes what policy is and the process by which it is conceptualized, developed, adopted, and evaluated. You can use this analytical framework as a guide to identify, analyze, and prioritize policies that can improve health. Learn more about the domains of the policy process including stakeholder engagement and education, and evaluation.
   
3. How to Activate Your Organization (Organizational Strategy). Maternal and child health (MCH) professionals play an important role in the policy process, for example, by promoting and implementing evidence-based interventions. The health advantages of breastfeeding for infants and mothers is well-documented. Encouraging business and public agencies to establish supportive policies that enable women to successfully return to work and breastfeed sends a message to all employees that breastfeeding is valued. Does your organization have a company-wide lactation support program? If so, do you know who administers the program? Is the policy communicated to all current employees and included in new employee orientation training? Can you communicate the Business Case for Breastfeeding? Find steps for getting started, methods for measuring success, and tools for employers such as this model Policy for Supporting Breastfeeding Employees.
4. How to Incorporate Partners (Systems Strategy). How can Title V professionals identify and monitor improvements to MCH outcomes resulting from health system transformation?  Research shows that services provided by school-based health centers can significantly improve key educational outcomes among students; these outcomes can be supported by policy at the state level. Schools and local education agencies (LEAs) may be eligible, subject to an approved state Medicaid plan, for reimbursement for Medicaid services delivered in schools to children enrolled in Medicaid. This recent federal policy guidance outlines requirements that must be met for Medicaid reimbursement to be available. Find out if your state Medicaid agency, state education agency, and LEA are working together to explore opportunities to secure reimbursement for health services delivered to students enrolled in Medicaid. Have they mapped out a plan to ensure schools with large numbers of eligible students are equipped to participate?
5. How to Engage Your Communities. Working with communities and systems requires detailed planning before it can be translated into impactful work conducted over time, but how do you start your planning process? If policy is to keep pace with rapidly changing science, the public must participate. Every day individuals advocate on behalf of themselves or others to communicate needs, share experiences, and take steps to get what they want and need. The Genetic Alliance, Parent to Parent USA, and Family Voices collected tools and resources from their combined networks to create the Advocacy ATLAS to assist individuals and their families in advocating for whatever they may need. Individuals and families played an integral role in designing the toolkit, providing guidance and feedback during each step of development. Families also shared personal stories about advocacy to be included in the toolkit. View these archived webinars to learn more about the Advocacy ATLAS and to hear stories from self and parent advocates about their experiences with advocacy. Do you integrate the experiences of individuals and families in your communities in your policy process? If so, how?
   

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• "These activities make the world of policy and advocacy less mysterious and frightening. There is really no magic behind the curtain, and in reality, we are ALL involved in policy and advocacy in some way or another. Good exercises and awareness-raising."
• "These strategies are really like continuing education for us. They do take longer than 5 minutes, but are good to keep in mind. I am especially apprciative of the levels from individual professional all the way to community-based projects."