National Health Outreach and Engagement Conference 2024

Schafer, L and Dinh, C.
For over a decade, the Cooperative Extension System has made significant efforts advancing its
work related to health equity and wellbeing and making it more central to the system’s core
lines of work. With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Extension
implemented Well Connected Communities (WCC), a national, six-year initiative to tackle
systemic health inequities in over 50 communities supported by 25 land grant universities
(LGUs). WCC aimed to 1) build diverse, multigenerational, cross-sector local coalitions; and 2)
position Extension as a key partner in community health and wellbeing . An external, cross-site
evaluation of WCC assessed and documented signals of Extension systems change and lessons
learned.

This session will share evaluation results from the final four years of WCC. We will present key
findings, focusing on WCC’s contribution to transforming how Extension partners, both
internally and externally, to advance local health priorities. For example, WCC helped build
relationships and trust with local partners through methods like a coalition. Extension staff
applied a community-driven approach to prioritizing work, meeting communities where they
were at. LGU leads reported that through WCC, Extension is more visible within the
community, with local partners realizing opportunities for engaging Extension in ways beyond
more traditional roles (e.g., agriculture expertise, direct health education). Youth leadership
development was a central aspect of WCC, bringing energy and new ideas and demonstrating
the value of authentic, multi-generational collaboration.

Within Extension, WCC provided the opportunity to partner across program areas, building
collaborative relationships between and among program areas (e.g., family and consumer
sciences, 4-H, community development, and agriculture and natural resources). Extension staff
built skills, worked in new areas and in new ways, and brought passions and values of service
and equity to life through tangible approaches and strategies.

The presentation will also highlight key facilitators and barriers to doing this type of work
within the Extension context elevated by WCC. It will close with a discussion of implications
for sustainability and systems-wide change, including promising examples and plans for
building on this work. The session will engage participants in reflection and peer exchange.
Additional insights would be gathered on what it takes to do this work as well as opportunities
to further prompt and embed systems changes within Extension that advance health equity and
wellbeing. An additional goal of the session would be to celebrate the work of WCC
participants over the last several years and build excitement and interest in the LGU case
studies and final evaluation report anticipated to be shared in July 2024