My Work to Our Work Creating a Culture of Collaboration Through Knowledge Sharing

Abstract

The purpose of our study was to examine the Hennepin County Public Health Department (HCPH) and its many programs and their community engagement programs. In 2019, the Hennepin County Public Health Department finds itself facing new challenges, including regularly changing federal and state requirements, constantly updated grant requirements and uncertain funding streams are having an impact on how health service programs are delivered to residents. At the same time more technology, and a growing, increasingly diverse population requires HCPH to increase access, to streamline and provide more targeted services all while being mindful of government funds “for these reasons, it is imperative that there is shared knowledge about existing services and community health engagement initiatives. (HCPH Capstone Workshop Proposal Form, 2019). As a step to address this problem, the staff at HCPH developed a project proposal to build more collaboration among its community engagement programs. Our client, Veronica Schulz, Strategic Initiatives and Community Engagement for HCPH, had the idea of a framework as a central knowledge sharing tool for all staff to share the community engagement work being done at HCPH. The client also wanted further study to find other ways to help reduce gaps, see fewer overlaps in programming, improve collaboration, and increase knowledge sharing among HCPH staff. Given that each of our team members has an interest in community engagement, we chose to work with HCPH on their project, and this report is the result of our work.