1. Eligibility seems to have changed since the previous “rounds.” Is my agency eligible?
To be eligible to receive support, agencies must:
- Be a local health department on Ohio;
- Have responded to the Ohio Local Public Health Accreditation Support Project reassessment survey administered in February 2018; and
- Have submitted accreditation work plans in both April and October 2017 (LHDs who had not applied for PHAB accreditation as of October 31, 2017 were required to submit work plans).
2. What tips do you have for strengthening my proposal?
Simple, but true:
Answer all of the questions. Read the requirements, answer the question that is being asked. Proof read your request before considering it final. Complete thoughts. Complete sentences. Remember: Someone who has not been part of your conversations and planning will be reading, trying to understand what you are looking for, and ultimately “scoring” and assigning a support cost to your proposal. Clear and well-considered responses help.
Also: Draft your request in Word; edit and finalize in Word. Then, cut and paste into the survey. Consider having someone who is not familiar with what you are requesting read your response before you finalize it. Would they know what you are looking for?
One last thing: Resources are best allocated to areas where success is likely. Having an understanding of the PHAB requirements related to the prerequisite about which you are requesting support will help you to better articulate what assistance you need, what challenges might be faced and what milestones you want to accomplish.
3. What changes have been made to the requirements and/or selection process?
There were no substantive changes to the selection process for Round 4. Changes made in the previous round still apply:
- Collaborative requests will not receive preference. Experience from the first two rounds told us that individual collaborators’ needs, while related topically, were really not similar enough to yield the economies of scale as hoped.
- Areas of the state/jurisdictions not reached with previous rounds of support will receive preference.
4. What resources are available for proposals that are not supported?
Check out the project website at https://u.osu.edu/cphpaccreditationproject/. The Resources tab has tools that may be of assistance. If your agency’s accreditation coordinator is not a part of the statewide Accreditation Learning Community, loop him/her in to that group (send an e-mail to Meredith Cameron at cameron.829@osu.edu; she will see that you are added to the list). Find out if your region has a separate group of coordinators that meets periodically.
5. Our agency submitted a request in the past but was not funded. We felt we had a strong proposal and know that similar support was provided to other agencies in the past. Did the expectations change?
The expectations remained the same. In a few cases, training and technical assistance opportunities (e.g. QI planning) were planned and scheduled, but not yet widely announced. Some agencies were offered priority participation to those events instead of receiving 1:1 assistance. These changes were implemented to achieve efficiencies and economies of scale, making best use of limited resources.