Ohio’s F2F has teamed up with the Ohio Department of Health (Title V Division) to participate in a national project sponsored by Family Voices and Leadership in Family/Professional Partnerships. We are one of 5 states chosen for the project, with a goal of forming a Collaborative Action Team to encourage parents from underserved populations in Ohio to join advisory groups on local, regional and statewide levels. During the Coronavirus pandemic, our team worked together to disseminate related health information to the Somali and Hispanic communities in their primary languages. These are the two cultural groups our team chose to focus on, and we have added cultural advisors to our team representing these two populations.
Additional goals in the CAT action plan include engaging the CMH parent advisory council in Implicit Bias training, and then working to recruit, support and mentor new members of the PAC from the Somali and Hispanic communities. We hope to apply what we learn in the process to include other underserved populations in this and other decision-making groups in the future.