Date: May 9th – June 20th, 2024 
Deadline to Apply: Friday, April 19, 2024

Overview

Are you beginning to plan for your Community Needs Assessment? Are you looking for tools and strategies?  

Conducting your community health needs assessment is a critically important part of being a Health Center. It is a HRSA compliance requirement and a valuable opportunity to identify, understand, and respond to the most pressing needs of health center patients, staff, and the broader community.  

Join NACHC’s Planning Your Health Center Community Needs Assessment Learning Collaborative to become part of a Community of Practice (CoP) on designing your needs assessment. We will use a cohort model and a human-centered design approach over the course of four interactive and engaging Workshops.  

Upon completion of this Learning Collaborative, your Health Center with emerge with a draft workplan for implementing your Community Needs Assessment.

Workshop Schedule  

The Learning Collaborative will convene four times between May - June 2024. Each workshop will cover a topic relevant to Community Needs Assessments and provide an opportunity for health center staff preparing for their needs assessments to discuss the topics with their peers in breakout discussions. The Learning Collaborative is led by NACHC staff in close partnership with health center staff, HRSA’s Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC), and Needs Assessment subject matter experts. 

All workshops take place from 2:00-3:30pm ET. 

• Workshop #1 on May 9, 2024: Health Center Program Requirements and Key Design Considerations for your Needs Assessment 
• Workshop #2 on May 23, 2024: Selecting Methodologies for your Needs Assessment 
• Workshop #3 on June 6, 2024: Data Driven: Sets, Tools, and Collection 
• Workshop #4 on June 20, 2024: Structuring your Needs Assessment to Support your Strategic Plan 

Audience  

This free Learning Collaborative is designed for Health Centers in the planning stage of their community needs assessment. Health center staff directly engaged in needs assessment work or decision-making around the needs assessment are invited to attend. Potential participants include C-suite (CEO/COO), development team, research team, quality team, or outreach team. Health centers are invited to submit up to three (3) staff to attend the Learning Collaborative. 

Participation will be limited to 15-20 health centers planning for their tri-annual needs assessment. All applicants will be vetted based on their applications and be admitted on a first come, first serve basis.   

Learning Collaborative Objectives 

• Provide a venue to interact, dialogue, and learn from health center colleagues. 

• Describe practical methodologies, tools, and strategies utilized by health centers to plan and execute community needs assessments that support strategic planning. 

• Identify additional needs assessment-related resources and/or training and technical assistance support via health center feedback.

• Have fun! 

Participation Expectations  

During the Learning Collaborative, each health center will:  

• Have at least one staff member present at each of the four (4) workshops. (The representative may change based on the workshop date.) Multiple members of a health center are welcome to attend as a team. 
• Have proper supervisor or senior leader approval to attend the Learning Collaborative.
• Respond to workshop and Learning Collaborative evaluations. 
• Engage in the Noddlepod Community. 

In advance of the first session on May 9, participants will: 

• Take the Needs Assessment E-Learning Module (30 minutes) 
• Review the NACHC Quick Guide to Conducting Your Health Center’s Needs Assessment 
• Obtain a copy of their health center’s last needs assessment 

Deadline to apply is April 19, 2024. Participation in this Learning Collaborative is limited. Applying does not guarantee your health center a spot. Applications will be reviewed and assessed on your ability to meet the participation criteria (i.e. ability to attend all workshops, complete work between Workshops, etc). Invitations to join the Learning Collaborative will be sent during the week of April 22-26, 2024.

For more information, contact NACHC Staff Lead, Ted Henson, Director, Health Center Growth and development, thenson@nachc.org .

We hope you will join us for what we feel will be an informative and helpful time together!