Now that you have assessed the needs of your community and have started to develop a plan, how do you ensure your health program will be successful?

Rallying partners within the community is vital to the overall success of public health programs. This part of program development is often referred to as mobilizing partners. Many successful health programs have incorporated this step into their program planning models. For instance, Healthy People 2020 implements the simple and direct MAP-IT planning models.

For this Discussion, consider the role and importance of mobilizing partners in your public health program.

To Prepare for this Discussion:

• Review Chapter 2 and 9 of the McKenzie et al. text and the Healthy People 2020 Potential Partners PDF and think about the importance of mobilizing partners.
• Review the CDC’s Healthy Communities Program Success Stories websites. 
• Select a story that involves a topic of interest to you.
• Consider the role of partnership (the mobilize step) in implementing the program highlighted in the article.
• Think about what other factors (assess, plan, implement, track) contributed to the program’s success.

With these thoughts in mind:

By Day 4

Post a brief description of the success story you selected. Then describe the role of mobilizing partnerships in the implementation of the program and explain why this was essential to the program’s success. Finally, explain one way assessing, planning, implementing, or tracking enabled the program to succeed. Support your response using the Learning Resources and current literature.

Note: Initial postings must be 250–350 words (not including references).