Building Collaboration across the Dan River Region

Danville Regional Foundation

Healthy Places by Design continued to deepen our work with The Health Collaborative (THC), a group of passionate, multi-sector community leaders committed to improving health in the Dan River Region of Virginia and North Carolina, by providing strategic thought partnership around health equity, strategic planning, and regional collaboration.

Building on efforts in 2018 to increase internal capacity to address equity, we helped DRF plan and organize a 2019 site visit to New Orleans, LA with health equity as its focus. THC members learned firsthand how a local community was embedding equity into its programs, policies, and decision making processes. Members brought back ideas ranging from creating stronger and more active marketing and communication networks to developing more opportunities for formal leadership and equity training.

Working closely with the Danville Regional Foundation, Healthy Places by Design encouraged the foundation to financially support THC members to attend the Racial Equity Institute’s two-day Undoing Racism training.

Working closely with the Danville Regional Foundation, Healthy Places by Design also encouraged the foundation to financially support THC members to attend the Racial Equity Institute’s two-day Undoing Racism training. Over the past two years, nearly 25 members attended this training, gained new insights, and approached their day-to-day work with a fresh, equity-framed perspective. For example, after staff in leadership positions at a local healthcare management organization attended the training, they changed the organization’s hiring policies to decrease the influence of implicit biases.

Finally, Healthy Places by Design encouraged the Caswell County THC chapter to apply for the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE), a capacity-building opportunity for local governments that are interested in advancing racial equity. The county is now part of the statewide GARE cohort. We are encouraged by this rural county government’s step toward addressing equity in a more intentional way.

 

“Healthy Places by Design (HPbD) is really good at facilitating and helping us come to a consensus. And all of the connections to other communities are invaluable—I’m completely sold on the site visits being transformative experiences. We had a very strong focus on equity going into the site visit, and HPbD makes sure we always think through that.”

Annie Martinie, Senior Program Officer, Danville Regional Foundation