Iowa UCEDD Partnerships Result in Improved Consumer Inclusion in Public Health Planning
August 26, 2014
In July 2014, each of Iowa's 99 county health departments received a comprehensive list of community-based employment and supported living disability service providers in their county courtesy of Iowa COMPASS, Iowa's statewide information and referral service housed at the Center for Disabilities and Development (CDD), Iowa's UCEDD.
The genesis for this information dissemination project was a community training webinar conducted by Jane Gay, Project Coordinator of the Living Well Iowa Project, also housed at CDD. The webinar, funded through Iowa's CDC state-based Disability and Health Program for which CDD serves as a subcontractor for the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH), provided recommendations to Iowa's 26 Community Transformation Grant counties on including persons with disabilities in health promotion and health care access initiatives. Gay provided county lists of community-based disability service providers for the training, encouraging participants to partner with these groups to facilitate engagement of persons with disabilities.
Dr. Louise Lex, a health planner with the Division of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at IDPH, saw a broad-based application for the community resources which Gay had provided. Lex, a long-time advocate for the inclusion of persons with disabilities in public health initiatives, contacted Gay to suggest that a similar resource list be created and disseminated to all 99 county health departments. Lex distributed the county lists, adding a cover memo encouraging health departments to utilize the provided resources to facilitate involvement of persons with disabilities, advocates and providers in their County Health Needs Assessments.
The fulfillment of this project illustrates the importance of the many state and federal partnerships in which our Centers have the opportunity to engage. CDD's 18-year partnership with IDPH to implement Iowa's federally-funded Disability and Health grant has allowed us to educate state leadership on the importance of disability inclusion in public health planning and implementation. In addition, the project presents a model of how collaboration across programs within a UCEDD leads to accomplishing our mission of improving the quality of life for individuals with disabilities through the performance of multiple core functions.