In 2023, the U.S. Congress appropriated $593.8 million to the Title V Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant. This funding helped provide health services for an estimated 59 million people in the United States, including 94% of all pregnant women, 98% of infants, and 59% of children.
How does this funding make such a significant impact? It’s about partnerships between state health departments that receive the Title V funds and the local agencies that implement vital programs and services for young families!
To examine best practices in partnership, on April 22 CSN hosted a webinar featuring four state-level public health experts. Panelists included Peg Ogea-Ginsburg, injury prevention program manager at the Nebraska Department of Public Health and Human Services; Jennifer Miller, Title V MCH director at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment; Terrance Love, director of injury prevention at the Tennessee Department of Health; and Rebecca Majdoch, project director at the Louisiana Department of Health. Drawing on their own experiences in the field, the quartet offered tips for both state health officials and local implementers about how to build, foster, and nurture effective partnerships.
Defining an effective partnership
What do you want to accomplish together? According to Miller, identifying clear expectations for each partner early on is the basis for any effective collaboration.
“For me, it's understanding what each member is bringing to the table, as well as making sure that you're not there just to get what you need, but you're also there to help support your other partners with what they need,” she said.
Other panelists added that effective partnerships begin with communication, and so it’s important for partners to both be at the same table and find ways that your goals align.
Finding common language matters too. In Louisiana, Majdoch partners with the state’s Medicaid program to implement some Title V services. Many of their priorities are in full alignment. However, Majdoch found that building an interagency agreement was difficult because the state’s Department of Health didn’t use the same terms and language as the state’s Medicaid department. Building that partnership required “learning the language of Medicaid.”
“When we finally honed in on what to ask Medicaid about, and how to frame it around beneficiaries and quality improvement and value-based payment systems, it made it a lot easier to have a more meaningful interagency agreement and work together more effectively,” said Majdoch.
Finding common ground
Collaborative relationships work when federal, state, and local partners share the same priorities and work to break down organizational silos to work together on areas of common interest.
In Tennessee, Love highlighted the fact that the staff who administer the block grant funding are in the state’s Department of Health, which allows for streamlined collaboration with other state health agencies. This has yielded positive partnerships, as well as opportunities for Tennessee to “seize the moment” to go beyond expectations.
One example is the state’s implementation of Be SMART, a firearm safety program. As Love was helping to launch the program, he heard from a block grant provider who wanted to implement Be SMART in home visiting settings too. Love liked the idea as it would expand the program to an even larger audience, perhaps increasing its impact. They worked together to develop a Be SMART training for home visitors.
“[Partnerships] like that can grow if you're open to it, [especially] if you're open to doing just a little bit of program evaluation along the way so you can share [what you are doing] with others, and they can see that it's working,” says Love.
Identify and resolve common challenges
Presenters did acknowledge some systematic challenges to effective collaboration. One was the need for multiple levels of approval at the state and federal level, as well as the pace of government. Another challenge was that multiple, simultaneous partnerships to advance maternal and child health could leave them feeling “spread too thin,” so it was important to work efficiently to have maximum impact.
Ogea-Ginsburg raised another challenge that collaborations often face: finding common ground when funding sources are different, or when partners have even slightly mismatched priorities. Her work is funded by CDC; but when her partners have other sources of funding, small differences in process or deliverables can cause friction, even when the partners’ missions are aligned.
“What we're charged to do may not be the same as what some other partners are charged to do,” she said “So you really have to be sure that you can find that common ground. Because, ultimately, our ultimate goals are the same, but it could be that you have very specific deliverables that you have to meet for your grant, which may or may not match some of your partners’ deliverables for their funding.”
Another common challenge? Deciding on whether to continue a partnership when funding is coming to an end.
“Something that's still your priority may not continue to be their priority,” continued Ogea-Ginsburg. “Communication and making sure everybody's clear from the start about expectations can definitely help with that.”
Resources are available
Presenters offered a number of ways for local agencies to learn more about how to partner with state and federal agencies on maternal, infant, and child health. Presenters also suggested that CSN trainings and webinars are useful sources of information.
Another source of solid information? Your peers. Love spoke about the importance of networking and meeting others in the field, especially face-to-face at conferences. These personal relationships offer tremendous insights into how peer organizations are navigating sometimes tricky collaborative relationships, and can shed light on how to be a responsive partner.
Love’s final words of advice could be coined the Golden Rule of Partnering: “Be the partner you want to have.”
For additional resources, access Resources for Partnering with Federally Funded Programs