COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP & KNOWLEDGE TRANSLATION PRACTICES USED BY PUBLIC HEALTH TO ENGAGE COMMUNITY SERVICE PROVIDERS IN FALL PREVENTION Andrews, A., Bonomo, S., Brenner, J., Campbell, M., Cox, D., Dykeman, C., Goodall, C., Hamilton, B.A., Markle-Reid, M., Orr-Shaw, S., Plante, S., Ploeg, J., Reimer, H., Roberts, L., Salker, N., & Schieck, A

The Locally Driven Collaborative Projects (LDCP) program helps public health units work together to conduct applied research and program evaluation on a critical public health problem or program. The LDCP program operates on a two-year cycle. Each cycle, Public Health Ontario supports health units to:  Identify and prioritize ideas for projects  Build a strong team so that team members have access to the right expertise  Define a research question and methodological approach  Develop a proposal that is scientifically sound and feasible  Implement their project and engage in knowledge translation. Locally Driven Collaborative Projects (LDCPs)

 Everyone can play a role in fall prevention, and collective action in communities can have a big impact.  To learn how Public Health professionals have worked with community service providers and older adults to plan and implement fall prevention projects Background

What collaborative leadership and knowledge translation practices have Public Health professionals used to engage community service providers and older adult stakeholders in the development of fall prevention initiatives? Research Question

To examine:  1) the collaborative leadership (CL) practices used by public health (PH) to plan and implement fall prevention (FP) initiatives with community groups, and  2) the knowledge translation (KT) practices used by public health to move knowledge into practice. Objectives

 Design – Qualitative, exploratory, multiple case study  Cases – four community groups who planned and implemented fall prevention initiatives for community- dwelling older adults.  Cases comprised of:  Community service providers,  Public Health professionals, and  Older adult community members.  Four geographic areas representing rural and urban regions. Methods

 Data collection included:  focus groups (n=4),  interviews (n=26),  surveys (n=33) and  group documents (n=75)  Within case analysis: an inductive approach  Cross case analysis: comparing the cases and seeking consensus on emergent findings Methods

Collaborative Analysis Opportunities to:  Cultivate a team approach  Apply a public health perspective  Develop research capacity through participatory learning  Achieve rigor Challenges:  Scheduling and logistics (e.g. geographically dispersed team)  Extended process of analysis

Seven themes emerged from the data regarding CL practices for fall prevention Public health professionals enable group work through:  Specific practices  Institutional supports & skills Results

Results: Developing tailored approaches to address context TAILOR “when you refocus your telescope into the area of what’s possible and what can be done, you end up on this micro scale” (B7)

Results: Making Connections CONNECT “what public health can do is … allow their staff to be out in the community and be in groups like this [and] be involved” (D3)

“ do that real check in” (A6) Results: Enabling Communication “continually work on and come up with new and creative ways to keep everyone in the loop” (A6) COMMUNICATE

Results: Shaping the Vision ENVISION “falls prevention really includes healthy living ” (C5) “… there isn’t one sector that’s going to be able to do it alone.” (A6)

Results: Building the group’s skills to mobilize and take action “I have to build [the] capacity of others … so that it’s just not me” (A6) CAPACITY-BUILD

Results: O rchestrating people and projects “ … the more you can do to make their lives easier so that they can put their energy into the real work.” (A4) ORCHESTRATE

Results: B ring information and experience “ … public health has respect in the community, so … when we’re backed by public health I feel like that gives a lot of credibility in the community” (AFG3) INFORM

Insights Group Membership:  Plan for and accommodate a social component  Develop leadership The role of the public health professional:  Chairing and leadership: institutional legitimacy, organizational capacity, and political capital  Tension: PHPs attempt to build leadership capacity yet members like the status quo

Preliminary themes from the data regarding KT: 1) tailoring knowledge to the values of diverse audiences, 2) using multiple sources of knowledge, 3) building knowledge together through ongoing communication, 4) embedding mechanisms for ongoing learning, and 5) addressing barriers to KT. Results

 Collaborative practices are a priority and public health professionals are in an optimal position to facilitate collaboration  KT practices are used to effectively engage diverse community partners in working together to reduce falls among community-dwelling older adults Conclusions

Angela Andrews and Jennifer Brenner would like to thank Public Health Ontario (PHO) for its support of this project. The team gratefully acknowledges funding received from PHO through the Locally Driven Collaborative Projects program. The views expressed in the publication are the views of the LDCP Fall Prevention Project Team, and do not necessarily reflect those of Public Health Ontario. Acknowledgements