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Maternal and Child Health: Family, Youth, and Community Engagement Domains

With the Maternal and Child Health program, we aim to respond to participant experiences. Through Family, Youth, and Community Engagement (FYCE), we can better advance health equity.

There are many ways to promote Family, Youth and Community Engagement. We call these domains.

Domains for Family, Youth, and Community Engagement

Expand each domain to learn more about what it means and tips for how sites can include it in their programming.

 

Colored circles with letters spelling Partnership

Partnership is:

  • A relationship of trust and respect between staff and who they serve.
  • When family, youth, and community members work together with shared goals.
  • A commitment to social support systems within the program and larger community.

Ways to improve partnership:

  • Hold a meeting each year in a target community. Find family, youth, and community members to attend. Share your work and provide resources and referrals.
  • Find and support a community connector or cultural broker. They can work with you to get your program information into target communities and groups.
  • Host routine listening sessions in communities. Hear from family, youth, and community members about their concerns. Write down the concerns and think about them while creating and improving programs.
  • If you have the space, host special open houses for family, youth, and community members. Invite them to check out programs in a welcoming, informal space. Include community connectors. • Ask family, youth, and community members to review and comment on proposed programs and written materials. Form an advisory committee to do this work regularly.
  • Review meeting times and locations. Are they easy for everyone to attend (including those who need childcare)? Make sure family, youth, and community members can easily join.

 

Colored circles with letters spelling Culture

Culture is a commitment to health equity.

Ways to improve culture:

  • Use gender-preferred pronouns. This supports equity and shows respect.
  • Note days people observe for religious, spiritual, or cultural reasons. Keep these in mind when setting meetings or hosting events.
  • Provide ways for family, youth, and community members to express concerns. Create a process for giving anonymous feedback on policies, programs, culture, and/or work issues. Encourage people to use this tool.
  • Rotate who leads meetings. This ensures people share different perspectives.
  • Engage with a diverse group of stakeholders. Provide what’s needed, so they can be fully included. This may involve accessibility measures or language translations.
  • Know that social and economic differences offer many strengths and perspectives.

 

Colored circles with letters spelling Environment

Environment is:

  • Cultural and language-based responsiveness.
  • A system of regular communications with families, youth, and communities.
  • A welcoming and inviting setting, both in person and online.

Ways to improve environment:

  • Host focus groups in-person, on websites, and on social media. Have family, youth, and community members help write focus group questions and lead the discussion. Then, they can review feedback and help test suggested changes.
  • Form a review panel of family, youth, and community members. They can review materials from the program before they go to the public.
  • Invite cultural brokers to share information with program staff. This can help improve culture and language competency.
  • Create a space that shows respect for unique cultures. Focus on comfort and privacy.
  • Expand ways to directly communicate between family, youth, and community members and program staff.

 

Colored circles with letters spelling Leadership

Leadership is:

Ways to improve leadership:

  • Edit the mission, vision, strategic plan, and communications to highlight the value of FYCE.
  • Use a mix of top-down and bottom-up leadership styles to support authentic engagement.
  • Use the Whole Leadership Framework to set up systems and policies that consistently focus on FYCE.
  • Devote program funds to reimburse family, youth, and community members for sharing their lived experience and enhancing leadership skills.

 

Colored circles with letters spelling Development

Development is:

  • High-quality training for all program staff.
  • Career paths and leadership opportunities.

Ways to improve development:

  • Invite family, youth, and community members to join program staff in planning and training on equity, diversity, and engagement.
  • Find personal training plans to improve staff knowledge of equity and engagement. This includes defining ways they will integrate concepts into their work.
  • Formally recognize family, youth, and community members for their skills and inputs to the program.
  • Re-evaluate position descriptions and job requirements to give credit for lived experience. Assess and adjust recruitment plans for positions, so they expand to reach more potential applicants.

 

Colored circles with letters spelling Improvement

Improvement is data about engagement efforts, with results driving decision-making.

Ways to focus on improvement:

  • For surveys and focus groups, include family, youth, and community members. They should help:
    • Write questions.
    • Join group discussion or give out surveys.
    • Review group feedback.
    • Test suggested changes.

Invite family, youth, and community members to join program staff as they discuss using an Impact Matrix. This figures out which projects might be easy to do and have high impact.

  • Host a brainwriting session to get creative ideas that address problems with family, youth, and community members.
  • Ask family, youth, and community members to join program staff in a 5 Whys session. These sessions get to the root cause of a problem.

 

 

Last revised May 5, 2023