New Releases 
Annual Report – Coming Soon!
Keep an eye out on our homepage for our 2022-2023 Annual Report, which we will be posting in the coming weeks. As with recent years, this will include a short video summarizing what we accomplished together last year, along with a budget summary and best practices report. We will be sure to highlight the report on our home page as soon as it’s posted, and we look forward to viewing the video together at November’s office hours!
Accreditation in Action
Thank you for Attending Training!
We were so excited to see nearly 40 of you log into September’s Dashboard Webinar and over 20 of you show up for Accreditation 101 training, coming all the way from New Hanover to Northampton to Buncombe and many counties in between. If you attended Accreditation 101 training, please complete our brief evaluation that we emailed out a few weeks ago so that we can incorporate your feedback and improve.
Fall Site Visits Wrapping Up
We finish the fall site visit season next week, and our site visit teams are coming back with fabulous best practices to share! Congratulations to all agencies who have recently completed a site visit. We look forward to celebrating this cycle’s successes at our upcoming November adjudication meeting!
Helpful Resources
Free Online Self-Paced Courses for Public Health Professionals through NCIPH
While our NCIPH team was tabling at last week’s NCPHA Fall Educational Conference, our flyer on free self-paced courses flew off the table! Since folks had so much interest in this option, we want to take a moment to share about these resources here. The following trainings are free and available anytime:
- Introduction to Public Health in North Carolina
- Public Health Ethics Online Training
- Acting as a Parliamentarian for a Public Health Association
- Local Boards of Health Training Offerings
Tools for Public Health Communications
PHRASES, which stands for Public Health Reaching Across Sectors, has a wealth of resources on their website to support health departments in communicating across and partnering with various sectors. The PHRASES Tools, which include topics like Framing Tools, Answers to Tough Questions, and When You Say… They Think, might include some helpful ideas related to Accreditation benchmarks 10-14!
Key Dates
Wednesday, November 8: Office Hours, 9:00-9:45 am
Virtual. There is no cost to attend; however, registration is required. Register.
Friday, November 17: November Board Adjudication Meeting
Hybrid with options to join in Raleigh, NC and via Zoom. This is an open meeting. Additional details will be posted within 2 weeks of the board meeting.
Interested in exploring all upcoming events? Check out our Calendar page online!
Stories from the Field
Highlights From Winter 2023 Site Visits
We continue to share some of the fabulous best practices we heard through the Winter 2023 site visit cycle. This month, we’re focusing on best practices related to benchmarks 20 and 21.
Highlight 1, Activity 20.1: The Site Visit Team identified several collaborative processes that Cumberland County Department of Public Health has been instrumental in developing/facilitating as best practices. The health department has convened a large number of community partners to work on the opioid crisis, including locating a Narcan vending machine at the jail. The department is also developing a new division within the health department to work on homelessness, jail health, and substance abuse issues. Additionally, the health department provides space within its facility and other resources to Stedman-Wade Health Services (FQHC).
Highlight 2, Activity 20.1: The Site Visit Team identified the agreement between Durham County Department of Public Health (DCoDPH) and Lincoln Community Health Center, Inc (an FQHC) as a best practice for collaborating with community health care providers. DCoDPH provides clinic space and medical support such as phlebotomy and lab services, pharmacy access, etc. within the DCoDPH facility to the FQHC.
Highlight 3, Activity 21.3: The Site Visit Team recognized the exceptional outreach efforts of Dare County Department of Health & Human Services during COVID with a Spanish video release on YouTube to educate community members on current concerns.
Highlight 4, Activity 21.3: The Site Visit Team identified Orange County Health Department’s Family Success Alliance as a best practice. The program employs navigators to work with families of children from `cradle to college/career.` Families are identified within targeted areas of the county.
We want to hear from you
Share your tips and tricks for accreditation success with other local health departments across the state. If you have a tip or trick that you would like to share, send a summary – no more than 500 words – including the activity addressed and any lessons learned. Please send your submission to NCLHDaccreditation@unc.edu. Stories will be shared via these monthly highlights.