Friday, July 10, 2020

Free Training to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse

The Office of Children, Youth & Families recently shared this prevention opportunity and we wanted to spread the message far and wide. Through their Tipping Point initiative, Illuminate Colorado is offering this child sexual abuse prevention training free for all Coloradans. Sign up today and encourage others to take the training too.   

Initiative to prevent child sexual abuse aims to reach a tipping point in Colorado

The Tipping Point Initiative encourages all Coloradans to take the Darkness to Light Stewards of Children® training, the only evidence-informed, adult-focused child sexual abuse prevention program in the United States proven to increase knowledge and change behavior. Adults learn how to prevent, recognize and react responsibly to child sexual abuse and feel empowered to spread their knowledge within the community.
Help reach a tipping point in Colorado

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

VIP-MHP Statement & Action Plan to Dismantle Racism

VIP-MHP Statement & Action Plan to Dismantle Racism


Dear Child Fatality Prevention System Partners,

The Violence and Injury Prevention – Mental Health Promotion (VIP-MHP) Branch, which houses the Child Fatality Prevention System, in the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) recognizes that racism is a public health crisis. Black and Brown lives matter. Achieving a Colorado that is free from injury and violence is not possible without abolishing systemic racism and white supremacy. We are committed to addressing injustice in Colorado. Our work will continue until all Coloradans have the opportunity to live and have healthy lives, in a way that celebrates intersectional identities including race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, education level, age, language, religion, ability, and geographic location. Collectively we all can work to achieve this goal by improving racial justice and other forms of equity through all of our programs and practices.

The VIP-MHP Branch coordinates state and local mental health promotion, substance abuse prevention, and the prevention of death and injury in Colorado due to unintentional and intentional injuries through health policy, legislation, public awareness and education, training, assessments, data analysis, evaluation, and intervention programs. We are aware that many kinds of injury and violence share the same systemic causes: poverty and economic instability; lack of substance use treatment and mental health services; social norms related to violence; and a lack of social connectedness that affects us all and leaves too many youth unconnected or unsafe at school. As we seek to address these crucial issues, we commit to being responsive to the reality that structural racism intensifies each of them.

As a branch in a government agency, we recognize we hold power and privilege and that our “business as usual” perpetuates white supremacy and anti-Black and Brown racism. We must stop our perpetuation of a white supremacy culture and share our power to dismantle racism. We do not know all of the answers to addressing systemic racism, and yet are responsible to the community for our impact, our actions, and inactions. In order to hold ourselves accountable, we know we must take action to dismantle racism and become anti-racist now.

We've been working over the past month with a new sense of urgency to take concrete and meaningful actions. As a branch, we have some ideas, and we would like to share ownership with you; so, we are asking for your thoughts, questions, and contributions. This initial list of actions is a start that we will revisit and improve over time based on your feedback, and we commit to refine and expand upon this list in partnership with Colorado communities, particularly Black, Indigenous, and other communities of Color. Please see our draft action plan to dismantle racism in our work below:

1. Prioritizing Engagement of Communities

a. Require our work to be led by authentic engagement with communities, actively engaging community representatives, including youth, on issues of racism, and providing or accepting tools to engage actively and authentically with communities of color;
b. Reimburse communities, including individuals or community-based organizations, for their expertise by compensating them for their participation and engagement through financial support whenever possible;
c. Build trust, relationships, and alliances with local organizations that have a legacy and record of confronting racism;
d. Encourage community partners and stakeholders in the education, employment, housing, criminal justice, and safety arenas to recognize racism as a public health crisis and to activate the above items;

2. Educating Ourselves and Stakeholders

a. Identify the ways in which our program decisions and government systems perpetuate racism, and recognize and take action to address the impact that racism has on individual and population health;
b. Embed efforts to address and dismantle racism into all program efforts;
c. Educate internal and external partners about the public health impacts of racism and strategies to address these impacts;
d. Establish a shared language through creation of a glossary of terms and definitions concerning racism and health equity;
e. Own the responsibility of challenging all elected officials, leadership, staff, funders and grantees on white supremacy, racism, discrimination, and workplace biases and how to mitigate them;
f. Constantly challenge ourselves and others that dismantling racism is life-saving work that requires not just our commitment but our urgent action;

3. Informing and Changing Policies and Practices

a. Review, challenge, and/or establish written and unwritten rules, practices, policies, and/or ordinances with a racial equity lens;
b. Promote and encourage all policies that prioritize the health of people of color, and support local, state, regional, and federal initiatives that advance efforts to dismantle systematic racism and mitigate exposure to adverse childhood experiences and trauma;
c. Conduct human resources, vendor selection, and grant management decisions within our branch using a racial equity lens, including reviewing all internal policies and practices such as hiring, promotions, leadership appointments, and funding;
d. Prioritize racial equity in addressing risk and protective factors and implementation of strategies in all programs;

4. Resourcing

a. Secure and allocate adequate resources to successfully accomplish the above activities;
b. Remove barriers for communities to obtain and retain VIP-MHP branch funding.

We commit to these actions as public servants while sharing decisions and power with communities along the way. Recognizing this shared ownership to dismantle racism, we ask that we may join you in this work. We know we may encounter challenges within the broader state and government system, and we commit to working with you to disrupt and address those challenges as they arise. We humbly ask for your partnership, thoughts, input, and expertise. Next, we will be reaching out with opportunities for you to get involved to shape the branch strategic plan and move to apply these activities. We plan on compensating community members as a part of this process. 

If you are interested in getting involved earlier than that, please reach out to your CDPHE contact. You can also give us direct, anonymous, and uncompensated feedback through this Google Form.

Thank you for joining us in this work,

Kate Jankovsky and all CFPS Staff Members

Violence and Injury Prevention - Mental Health Promotion Branch
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

Monday, July 6, 2020

Support Pedestrian and Cyclist Safety

Happy Monday!  Today we're sharing funding and learning opportunities to support pedestrian and cyclist safety, revitalize main streets, and encourage teleworking.



Funding Opportunity

The Colorado Department of Transportation is launching two small grant programs:

Revitalizing Main Streets - This program was developed to support infrastructure projects that provide open spaces for mobility, community activities and economic development in the wake of the COVID-19 emergency. These quick-win activities will improve safety and create new community spaces to encourage healthy activity and mobility in Colorado’s towns and cities.

CDOT’s streetscape challenge will offer small-scale grants that support creative uses of public infrastructure in both cities and small towns across the state.

CanDo Community Telework Program - This program was developed to support communities in the creation of innovative Transportation Demand Management (TDM) programs and tools that draw from the lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic and past TDM work. Leveraging these lessons, the program intends to promote innovative tools that encourage practices - such as social distancing and teleworking - that can be further integrated into basic work practices and standards on a statewide level.

Pedestrian Safety Summit

USDOT Summit on Pedestrian Safety - This three-part webinar series starts Wednesday, July 8. Please see the USDOT site for full descriptions of each webinar.
  • Wed, July 8, 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. MST - Taking Action on Pedestrian Safety - Part 1: Introduction & Safe System Approach
  • Wed, July 15, 11-12:30 MST - Taking Action on Pedestrian Safety - Part 2: Consider Risk: When, Where, Who, How?
  • Tues, July 28, 11-12 MST - Taking Action on Pedestrian Safety - Part 3: Next Steps

Anti-Racist Walking Movement Resources

America Walks, a nonprofit organization, recently shared the following articles to prompt reflection on ways in which pedestrian and cycling efforts often center white people and how we can incorporate anti-racism into urban planning and transportation decisions:

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Kempe Summer Research Institute

We wanted to share this opportunity from The Kempe Center:

REGISTER NOW!
Interactive Virtual Learning Experience
August 3 - 7, 2020
Spearheaded by Drs. Desmond Runyan, John Fluke and Carol Runyan, The Kempe Center has developed a series of courses in child abuse research and evaluation in order to expand the researchers and evidence-supported programs in this field. Our aims are to better prepare researchers to apply for NIH and other support for their work and to ensure that practitioners are using the best evidence available to structure interventions and are contributing the evidence base through well-designed evaluations. Instructors include faculty from Kempe and a number of other leading research organizations and universities. The courses include lectures, discussion groups and mentoring by instructors and other visiting professionals.

We are excited to announce that for the August 2020 session we are converting all three courses to a new online format to accommodate the health and safety of our participants.

  • Course 1: Fundamentals of Clinical and Epidemiological Research

  • Course 2: Challenges & Opportunities in Child Maltreatment Research

  • Course 3 [MODIFIED DATES]: Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Research and Evaluation through a Public Health Lens. Exploring Issues of Design, Implementation, and Evaluation 

COURSE 3
Modified Self Paced Format
July 27th - August 14th

Course 3 has been modified to a 3 week format to better accommodate working professionals and practice-oriented graduate students. Within each week there will be specific online lectures, readings, and activities required. At the end of each week, there will a live mentoring session to address questions and assist participants in the development of their evaluation plans. Participants will learn basic approaches of public health planning and evaluation by working on creating an evaluation plan for a project of their choosing, ideally one to be carried out in their own work environment. Registered participants will have access to materials from other Kempe Courses. Visit the Kempe Summer Research Institute Website for more information.
COURSE 1 & 2: VIRTUAL FORMAT

Course 1 & Course 2 will still take place from August 3 - 7. To adapt the course to meet our students online learning needs we will limit the length of each day to begin at 9:00 AM (MST) and finish by 3 PM (MST). Many of the core lectures will be converted to pre-recorded, self-paced material that the students will need to complete before class. All pre-recorded material will be during July. During the week-long online virtual learning series each course will meet live via zoom for discussions about readings, pre-recorded presentations and additional short lectures. This will be followed by daily research seminars followed by breakout mentoring groups where students will develop their research or evaluation ideas with Kempe faculty.

DAILY RESEARCH SEMINAR SERIES (Open to all courses):

  • Heather Keenan, MD, PHD, MPH
  • Joanne Klevens, MD, MPH, PhD
  • Mary Clyde Pierce, MD
  • Melissa Jonson-Reid, PhD
  • Brett Drake, PhD

REGISTRATION:
Registration is available for academic credit through the Colorado School of Public Health. For those not seeking academic credit registration is a $150 fee, plus optional $25 for CEUs. 
REGISTER NOW!