Healthy Housing Solutions recognizes the importance of bringing together diverse groups of people in order to solve problems and advance government policies. Solutions’ experience in working with various stakeholders on residential environmental health and safety issues has shown that conducting and facilitating forums, both large and small, can increase knowledge, awareness and understanding, ultimately resulting in better, more workable programs.
Providing logistical conference and meeting support and planning
Solutions begins each facilitation effort with a determination of the goal and objectives of stakeholder meetings and an analysis of what topics need to be reviewed and discussed. This information is used to begin defining and refining the agenda for the meeting. As the agenda is being developed, Solutions identifies who needs to be engaged (as discussion leaders, facilitators and participants), the best way to engage them and assure their participation, and the date(s) on which the meetings are to be held. These activities represent key steps in logistical/conference support when performing technical facilitation.
Experience: To help formulate a strategic plan to eliminate lead poisoning in the State of Georgia by 2010, Solutions identified key stakeholder groups and representatives by their spheres of influence and responsibilities, coordinated meeting announcements, established meeting agendas and objectives, and facilitated, recorded and reported on the meeting results.
CDC’s Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch contracted with Solutions to develop a national Lead Poisoning Prevention Training Center. Solutions developed the agenda for this five-day training, prepared all training curricula and materials, identified and engaged plenary presentation speakers and training faculty, handled all training registrations and the award of continuing education credits/units, made all guest room, meeting space, audio-visual equipment, refreshment and other logistical arrangements with a hotel and conference center, and provided on-site management and facilitation throughout the event.
Performing technical facilitation of meetings, including focusing decision-making
Once details and other logistical matters are settled and the meeting date arrives, Solutions becomes responsible for convening and leading large and small group briefings and discussions. Facilitating meetings requires subject matter expertise combined with experience in directing discussions aimed at accomplishing agenda objectives. Solutions’ experienced staff has participated in and led numerous national, state and local conferences, workshops, peer review panels and working group sessions.
Experience: Solutions’ President/CEO assisted ICF Consulting, Inc. (ICF) in identifying and engaging peer reviewers and then coordinating their input and recommendations for changes to EPA’s lead certification discipline training courses.
As part of its contract to develop the curricula for the CDC’s national Lead Poisoning Prevention Program Training Center, Solutions identified and selected faculty and lecturers to review and comment on the training curricula and materials. A number of small group briefings and conference calls were held as part of this effort.
Recording and summarizing meeting discussion content
Our approach to and experience in debriefing and overall meeting planning, including providing facilitation as part of a series of stakeholder meetings on a single issue, is that lessons learned from an earlier meeting can help influence and improve a later meeting in the series.
Experience: Solutions helped organize and facilitate three stakeholder meetings for the Georgia Department of Human Resources, Division of Public Health. Based on deliberations during the first meeting, Solutions refined the agendas for the two subsequent meetings so that participants would be directed to focus on and ultimately approve recommendations for a state strategic lead poisoning elimination plan, which Solutions then developed.
Preparing draft and final reports for dissemination
As meetings and sessions are occurring, it is important to capture information and opinions being rendered, so they can be saved for later use.
Experience: Working with the State of Georgia, Solutions provided a draft for the permanent record of the stakeholder meetings it facilitated and moderated, recording discussion content and focusing decision-making for Georgia’s Lead Advisory Council on recommendations for a strategic plan. Draft and final reports, containing the strategic plan for eliminating lead poisoning by 2010, were prepared for dissemination.
As a subcontractor to ICF on its EPA contract, Solutions recommended revisions to a number of chapters in EPA’s lead certification discipline courses based on the results of a series of peer reviews. Solutions completed many of these course revisions.