Rural Community Development Opportunities

The title of this blog explains one of my goals-to assist rural areas with community and economic development as they relate to health care.  As I’ve mentioned in other posts, there are many opportunities and resources for communities to grow leaders and for individuals interested in working on health and other issues in their communities to develop leadership skills.  I often make reference to reports and studies in my posts.  I know these usually don’t make for fascinating reading.  I read and include them because I think it’s important to always be on the lookout for new ideas, methods and tools.  I’m simply providing you with resources—it’s up to you to select the right tools for you and your community.

 

The UW Medical School and Medical College of WI sponsor the Healthy Wisconsin Leadership Institute‘s Community Teams Program.  The year-long program helps develop collaborative leadership and public health skills in teams who are working to address health problems in their communities.  As the program title suggests, community teams, rather than individuals, apply to and participate in the program.  The curriculum includes “training in leadership as well as technical and scientific skills that equip learners to successfully impact local community health improvement initiatives.â€Â  Participants meet several times throughout the year for multi-day workshops while working between meetings on a real public health project in their community.  The application deadline is June 12.  This is really a great program.  If you’re working with a health care coalition in your community, I encourage you to apply.

 

The Rural Assistance Center has catalogued dozens of leadership development resources.  These include tools, funding opportunities, organizations and journals.  As the site authors state: “A rural community is only as strong as the individuals within.â€

 

The Center for Rural Affairs published a report, Home Town Competitiveness: Providing Tools and Trainings to Help Small Towns Thrive in the 21st Century, that outlines a plan used by several rural Midwest communities that faced declining prospects.  HTC is built around four community development concepts: building leadership and community capacity, engaging young people, fostering local philanthropy and supporting entrepreneurship.  The authors state, regarding leadership, “community change requires expanding local capacity to implement [effective strategies], to mobilize community members to work for a new future, and to marshal resources for the community good.â€Â  Communities that implemented HTC have already seen tangible results.

 

Education and understanding the needs of young people is an important component of HTC.  A Daily Yonder article last year on rural education stressed the importance of schools to rural community development.  The long term rewards are significant: raising the entrepreneurial spirit, retaining young people who might otherwise move away, protecting the regional environment.  But communities will face challenges: “They need to build community support to become centers of developing human potential for sustaining their quality of life and protecting the environment.  The task involves engaging the whole community in an investment for the future: the children.â€

March 12, 2009 · KJacobson · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: Reports and Studies, Training and Tools

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