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For more information on dHA please do not hesitate to contact the firm's principal partner, Kristin duBay Horton.
Completed projects awaiting final approval for document distribution |
Starting in November 2000, the Town of Monroe and RYASAP (Regional Youth/Adult
Substance Abuse Project) joined forces as collaborative partners in a
unique community-wide program to prevent problem and underage gambling
among students at Jockey Hollow Middle School and Masuk High School. Funding
for the program is through the Connecticut Department of Mental Health
and Addition Services (DMHAS), Program Gambling Services. The GAMES task
force is not anti-gambling but has been committed to promoting healthy
decision making by young people, especially as it relates to decisions
about gambling or to participate in gambling activities. For more information
on the GAMES Initiative visit www.gamesawareness.org.
The Bridgeport Safe Start Initiative was a six year Office of juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) funded project for the Center
for Women and Families that focused on system change to protect children
from the effects of witnessing domestic violence. In the last year of
this six year project, the dHA staff took over project oversight, completion
of evaluation efforts, development and implementation of a new training
on effectively engagement families in social services (Family Engagement
in the Real World), and development of final reports and materials into
lessons learned presentations and tools for dissemination. dHA also took
a role in the implementation of Bridgeport's Blueprint for young Children,
as many of the BSSI lessons learned have been integrated into this plan
for ensuring Bridgeport's children are ready to enter school by age 5
and ready to read by age 8.
For more information on BSSI visit www.cwfefc.org/safe_start.html
dHA was hired in May 2007 to provide technical assistance and training to seven community-driven health initiatives receiving multi-year funding from the Connecticut Health Foundation. The programs were developed by individuals and organizations (including churches, parent teacher groups, family centers, and programs within larger agencies). Each chose a health topic of interest, assessed the need for it in their community, and designed programs to address the identified needs. The focus of dHA's work is to develop each organization's capacity to sustain its program beyond the funding from the CT Health Foundation. The sustainability work was developed based on an assessment of the needs of the organizations, with input and support from the grant program's administrator (United Community Action for Neighborhoods in Hartford, CT). The trainings to date have included:
dHA also provides individual technical assistance to support the organizations' efforts to promote their programs, expand and increase their funding and establish sound management practices and controls. The training session agendas and training materials are available below. Please contact Kristin duBay Horton kdubayhorton@dhassoc.net if you would like copies of the training session handouts or if you are interested in having dHA deliver these training sessions to your organization.
The Bridgeport Health Improvement Partnership Community Health Assessment
was a city-wide effort conducted in 2005 to get a snapshot of the health
status of Bridgeport residents. Two surveys were conducted: a phone survey
that got responses from 1204 residents, and a companion in-person survey
that was conducted at health and human service agencies and queried 320
residents. These two surveys captured two different "slices"
of the Bridgeport population, as reflected in the demographics of each
group. The phone survey respondents as a group were much older and more
likely to be white. The agency respondents as a group were less educated
and more likely to have a household income of less than $20,000 per year.
Ethnic differences showed more Black/African Americans and respondents
of Caribbean descent among the agency respondents. Women were over-represented
in both groups, but more so among agency respondents. Highlights from
the two surveys are shown below. Unless specifically referred to as from
the "agency survey", response results refer to the phone survey.
The differences between the two survey populations have to be kept in
mind when interpreting the results
dHA was hired by the CT Dept of Public Health's Childhood Lead Poisoning
Prevention Unit, to facilitate the development of a lead poisoning elimination
plan in the Spring of 2004. This plan was developed with the input of
a task force of experts in the field, including local health departments,
community representatives, landlords, housing experts, and those engaged
in lead prevention. The plan was submitted to the Centers for Disease
Control in August 2004 and is available for review Throughout this project dHA facilitated meetings of the task force committees focused on the implementation of the plan. For additional information, meeting agendas or meeting minutes contact: kdubayhorton@dhassoc.net
Through the Environmental Public Health Tracking project dHA oversees and facilitated a collaborative between the CT Dept of Public Health, the CT Dept of Environmental Protection, and a consortium of experts in health, medicine, environmental justice, and environmental toxins. The goal of this consortia was to:
Plan to Implement Environmental Public Health Tracking in CT The work of the consortium, and the environmental public health tracking
work, nationally stem from a report from the Pew Commission, which can
be viewed at: For additional information, meeting agendas or meeting minutes contact: kdubayhorton@dhassoc.net
dHA is working with a group of community based providers through a grant funded by SAMSHA. The purpose of this study is to evaluate young Latino's perceptions and attitudes about alcohol, drug use, and HIV risks, as well as the natural supports that these young people have available to them to avoid or reduce risky behaviors. It is the intent of this project to better understand these factors in order to build programs that will be responsive to this population's needs and build upon the natural supports that they have available to them. The research has been funded as part of a planning grant from SAMSHA.
The CT Department of Public Health's AIDS Division secured funds from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to undertake an assessment of ongoing linkages for people living with HIV between case management programs, counseling and testing, prevention clinical service programs such as prevention case management, and partner notification as well as other HIV prevention programs. dHA was hired to undertake this assessment. The team's work began in October of 2001. The objective of this assessment was to better understand the linkages between these programs, which are ongoing, to improve the system used to document these linkages, and to identify areas in needs of improvement to build upon ongoing efforts. Click here for a brief overview of the project.
CT CPG 2002 Retreat Tackling Inter CPG Relations dHA was hired in October 2002 to develop collaboratively with representatives from NAPWA a two day retreat to tackle difficult relationships within the CPG membership. The Retreat, titled “Many Voices, One Goal” focused on issues around communication and relationship building, as well as on the core activities of community planning and how to accomplish them in a respectful and meaningful way. The agenda from this retreat, as well as some outlines for some of the activities undertaken (including a theater component and several group exercises) are included in this workshop summary, as well as comments from one of the dHA staff that planned and facilitated this event. Click here.
dHA worked collaboratively with consultants from Urban Policy Strategies
to develop a one-day training for local health departments and their partners
in undertaking cardiovascular disease prevention on designing and implementing
Environmental and Policy level interventions. This one day training sought
to teach participants just what an environmental and policy intervention
was, to hear examples of these types of interventions undertaken by other
local health departments, or by other entities (the installation of machines
in health clubs to use in case of a heart attack), and to have participants
brainstorm and begin to plan for implementation of this type of intervention
in their own communities.
Since HIV was first identified, we have witnessed the powerful positive impact of education and prevention interventions -- they are an important first line of defense. The HIV Evaluation Bank was created by the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) and The Community Planning Group to assist community organizations with HIV Education and Prevention programs. They sought to promote excellence as a tool to reduce the spread and impact of HIV infection. Connecticut was one of the first states in the country to help community organizations to apply evaluation tools to their HIV programs. The HIV Evaluation Bank helps community organizations to incorporate science-based theory into existing and new HIV prevention interventions and evaluate the effectiveness of HIV prevention interventions. Click here for a detailed overview of this project.
HIV Prevention Needs of Children under age 13(NYCCPG) dHA was hired in the Fall of 2000 to do a quick and dirty assessment of the HIV Prevention needs of children under age 13 in New York City. To this end dHA drafted a "statement on children's needs" with the input of a committee of experts in the field. Experts included physicians and medical providers treating HIV positive youth, parents of young people, providers serving at-risk youth from a variety of perspectives. The project raised a number of important issues particularly relating to the secondary HIV prevention needs of HIV positive young people, and the primary HIV prevention needs of children in families affected by HIV. The specific developmental issues for these young people - who seek to normalize their own experience by being like their peers - was of great concern to participants. The statement approved by the committee of the CPG that dHA staff worked with and by the experts who participated in the discussion is available, please click here.
Completed projects awaiting final approval for document distribution
Social Marketing Campaign through Yale's Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS Community Partnership Program. dHA received a grant from Yale's Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS to undertake a social marketing pilot project. This project will conduct formative research to better understand the appropriate messages, delivery systems, and messengers for a social marketing campaign seeking to reach 13-18 year olds at risk of contracting HIV in Bridgeport and New Haven, CT. Bridgeport and New Haven youth demonstrate high risk of contracting HIV as demonstrated by high rates of STDs and a disproportionate impact of HIV among African Americans and Latinos. 15-24 year olds in Bridgeport and New Haven have gonorrhea and Chlamydia case rates 2-10 times that of this age group in the state as a whole, and among them African American and Hispanic youth have case rates 10-200 times that in among state residents in total. This project will conduct 8 focus groups of young people (13-18 years old) seeking to understand their primary source of HIV prevention information and find natural places for delivering HIV prevention messages (eg: radio, public service announcements in movie theaters, public information campaigns on public transit or on billboards, web-based education methods, etc.) While focus groups can not give a complete picture of the best communication modes of all young people, this effort, which will target high risk youth, will be most helpful in understanding the complex concerns and issues that these young people face and the best methods to reach them with HIV prevention information. Moreover, Bridgeport and New Haven offers a relatively social marketing naïve population with regards to HIV prevention messages. There have been few social marketing campaigns in this region seeking to reach young people. This project will develop effective messages to high risk youth in one of the epicenters of the AIDS epidemic in CT. As a pilot project, it will elucidate the needs of these young people and support the development of a full scale effort which will include the development and evaluation of the social marketing campaign plan developed in these focus groups. In this project dHA partners with community based providers in Bridgeport and New Haven. This work was completed in 2006 and a brief summary of the work that we like to call "Social Marketing 101 for Dummies" was released in April 2007 at Yale's Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS Event, AIDS Science Day. To download a pdf of the two page lessons learned from a number of dHA's social marketing efforts please click here
duBay Horton Associates has secured funds from the CT Department of Public Health’s Maternal and Child Health Unit and to better understand the key differences between African American women and other women that may account for their lower rates of breastfeeding initiation and maintenance in CT. This project will be carried out in three stages. Stage One: secondary data collection and analysis - will include a literature review on the topic and review of secondary datasets on breastfeeding including the Ross Mother's Survey, the PRATS survey, and a recent survey by the DPH of providers on breastfeeding including pediatricians, obstetricians, and family practitioners in the state. Stage Two: primary data collection will include focus groups and a survey of mothers (both African American and others) in CT. The sampling plan for these two primary data collection efforts will be driven by the information gathered in Stage One. Stage Three will focus on report writing and the development of recommendations for the Department of Public Health. The assessment data collection occurred in Winter 2004-5 and a draft report was completed in Sept 2005 which included a detailed resource inventory.Final report is available for review.
duBay Horton Associates has been contracted by the CT Dept of Public health to conduct an assessment of the need for bereavement services in CT for families that have experienced a fetal or other infant (including sudden infant death syndrome) death. The assessment will identify resources, supports and barriers to accessing services while addressing racial and ethnic disparities and identify an evidence-based public awareness campaign to target populations with high rates of infant mortality. The assessment will be conducted through key informant interviews with a variety of professionals and community groups serving affected families. The assessment data collection was completed in Winter 2004-5 and a draft report was completed in July 2005
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| Copyright © dHa 2003 |
Childhood
Lead Poisoning Project
Cardiovascular
Health Training on Environmental and
HIV
Evaluation Bank
Social
Marketing Campaign
CT
Breastfeeding Assessment
CT
Bereavement Services Needs Assessment for