Building Synergies Across Three Roles
When ULGH president and chief executive officer Adrienne Cochrane and former board chair Jeffrey Oiler invited me to join the board four years ago, I questioned my capacity to effectively contribute. As a product of the turbulent ‘60’s, I was confident in my commitment to the organization’s mission, vision, and values. I wondered, however, how this role could be informed by and be synergistic with my leadership activities in the Connecticut Children’s Office for Community Child Health (the Office) and our Help Me Grow National Center (National Center). Upon further reflection, the link seemed rather obvious, given the extraordinary influence of such critical factors as education, economic development, workforce development and employment, and housing on economic empowerment and, as a consequence, on families’ capacity to promote children’s healthy development. Furthermore, our activities in the development of programs, public policy research, and advocacy are highly pertinent to the related efforts of the League. As a consequence, I enthusiastically joined the board and, ultimately, assumed the role of chair. As anticipated, the opportunities for synergy are abundant. For example, ULGH has expanded its focus on health and wellness through such activities as housing a Hartford Healthy Start outreach worker and ensuring the outreach worker’s familiarity with the resources of Help Me Grow and participation in our Office’s regional care coordination collaborative.
Current momentous, tragic events across our nation now command the full attention of our mission-driven organizations. Mass and individual shootings of civilians and police, protests against police aggression and misconduct, and overt acts of racism and terrorism demand the best thinking and collective action of our leaders. I now ponder the implications of current events for the activities of the Office, the National Center, and ULGH, as well as the interface among these efforts. While such time-sensitive issues as community policing and community relations, gun control legislation, and immigration systems and policies are debated at the societal level, we must simultaneously consider the “upstream,” longer-term interventions that address the root causes of current problems. In our current work, we are constantly mindful of the critical importance of efforts in multiple sectors: child health, early care and education, and family support, as well as child welfare, food and nutrition, housing, economic development, workforce development and employment, neighborhood health and safety, transportation, arts and culture, and faith-based initiatives. We also realize the need for all sectors to effectively collaborate within a comprehensive system of programs and services.
I have also come to conclude that our efforts to successfully address seemingly overwhelming and ubiquitous contemporary problems are ultimately predicated on the extent to which we strengthen families’ capacity to promote their children’s healthy development. I invite you to consider the extent to which our current challenges may be mitigated by strengthening families’ protective factors: family resiliency, concrete support in times of need, social connections, understanding of children’s development and parenting practices, and children’s social and emotional development. I no longer wonder as to the interconnectedness of my roles across multiple organizations. The unifying factor is the extent to which all interventions must engage and strengthen families. In fact, we will only succeed by ensuring that our efforts are collaborative and synergistic.
