Have you been reading or hearing about MAPP in Clark County? If so, you may be wondering what MAPP really is and how you can get involved. MAPP stands for “Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships.”
This is a community health assessment tool developed by the Centers for Disease Control and the National Association of County and City Health Officials. MAPP helps bring community members, organizations, groups and agencies together to identify and tackle health challenges facing the community. Through the MAPP process, Clark County plans to develop goals and strategies to improve the health and quality of life for its residents.
The Healthy MAPP Community project will address three questions:
— Where are we currently?
— Where should we be headed?
— How do we plan to get there?
The Clark Regional Foundation for the Promotion of Health (CRF) and the Clark County Health Department (CCHD) have partnered to begin the MAPP project. November 3 marked the official start of this project with our Healthy MAPP Community Kick-off. Local partners invested in community health gathered together to learn more about MAPP. Since this meeting, 56 interested partners, organizations and agencies have signed up to be a part of the planning and assessment process.
Monday, Dec. 5, members of the CRF Board of Directors, the CCHD Director, and the MAPP Coordinator Beth Willett met with our three MAPP facilitators to discuss how to move forward. Similar to the MAPP Kick-off, those attending this meeting left with excitement about the project and a desire to keep spreading the MAPP energy in the community.
To have a successful project and really impact health in Clark County, MAPP needs to be a community project. We will need as many hands as possible in the planning and the assessments. This means we need you! The planning meetings and assessments will be held throughout 2012, and community members will be invited to participate in several ways. Citizens with an interest in community health or simply an interest in keeping their neighborhoods or families healthy are invited to join the planning team or attend the public MAPP meetings. Small efforts from community members can deliver big benefits to the entire community’s health.
The MAPP planning meetings and assessment events will be announced in the Winchester Sun, on 107.7 WKYN-FM, local Channel 5’s Community Bulletin Board, and participating organizations will help to get the word out. These meetings and events will be starting in early 2012, so stay tuned for more information about our Healthy MAPP Community project here in Clark County. For more details on how to get involved, contact the CCHD to reach Beth Willett at 744-4482 or bethv.willett@ky.gov.
