The Center for Health Innovation & Practice (CHIP) helps those who work in public health to create bold, forward-thinking solutions that remove barriers and reimagine systems that all communities, especially those historically excluded, can thrive. CHIP collaborates with multi-sector partners to implement programs, conduct research and evaluation, and support strategies that elevate foundational discrepancies of targeted engagement through workshops, technical assistance, training, facilitation, coaching, and consultations. Projects within the Center for Health Innovation Practice speak directly to issues of poverty, inequality, and the social systems that contribute to them. The Center hosts Detroit Health Innovations (D-HI). D-HI is dedicated to collaborating with community partners to promote health initiatives and implement prevention programs while addressing health discrepancies and social influences of health in the Detroit metropolitan area.
Our Expertise
- Technical Assistance and Consultation
- Training and Learning Labs
Community Partnerships
Substance Abuse/Mental Health
Adult and Adolescent Diabetes
Perinatal Health
Project Management
Research and Evaluation
- Group Dialogue and Facilitation
Infant Mortality
Coalition Convening
Physician Organization
We Offer Workshop and Learning Opportunities to Support Organizations Focused on Ensuring Access to Care for All and Reducing Health Disparities.
In-Person
We offer in-person workshops for small and large groups led by facilitation and equity experts.
Virtual
We conduct many virtual learnings to ensure everyone can participate regardless of their location.
Customized
We provide learning opportunities tailored to your organization’s specific needs.
Project Highlights
The Recovery Friendly Workplace (RFW) initiative was developed in collaboration with MDHHS through a SAMHSA State Opioid Response 3 grant. The program aims to educate employers on ways to support individuals in recovery from a substance use or opioid use disorder and encourage opportunities for employment for job-seeking individuals in recovery. A Recovery Friendly Workplace culture promotes health, safety and wellness for Michigan employers and employees, acknowledges the needs of individuals impacted by substance use, and develops supportive work environments through trainings, and access to resources. The program has been adapted with permission from the State of New Hampshire’s Recovery Friendly Workplace. For more information on the program, benefits, or how to become a designated Recovery Friendly Workplace, please visit https://recoveryfriendlymi.com/
The Michigan Public Health Institute Center for Health Innovation & Practice (CHIP) in collaboration with the Southeast Michigan Hospital Collaborative (SEMIHC) as primary partners, will increase enrollment in the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) among Black individuals in Metro Detroit. A key component of this workplan includes prioritizing and elevating community voices to impact positive changes to program implementation and addressing health related social needs of people at highest risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Learn more at Southeast MI Diabetes Prevention Management
The Public Health Infrastructure grant (PHIG) is a landmark investment from the CDC that supports critical public health infrastructure across the United States. Michigan Public Health Institute (MPHI) is one of the national partners of PHIG, along with ASTHO, NACCHO, and NNPHI. MPHI’s Center for Health Innovation & Practice (CHIP) in collaboration with Center for Strategic Health Partnerships (CSHP) have an essential role in the development of organizational capacity building to cultivate an equitable, diverse, and prepared public health workforce. CHIP is conducting research to identify gaps and needs of organizations to build a more supportive, transformative public health authority. CHIP is developing best practices and standards for public health governance and leadership. Through the creation and launch of a health equity fellowship program, CHIP is supporting public health’s capacity to recruit, retain, and train a diverse public health workforce that is equipped to center equity internally and in its services. The fellowship program will enhance the infrastructure and competency of public health professionals to address health disparities and social determinants of health. CHIP is scaling up its successful health equity workshop “ADJUST” into a train-the-trainer program to increase access to training offerings for organizations to implement. The ADJUST workshop fosters a culture of equity and inclusion within public health organizations and among their partners and stakeholders. A core value for MPHI and CHIP is to do health equity work through development of authentic relationships and thought partnership. CHIP is bridging and strengthening relationships across spokes to shift power and co-create equitable solutions with communities. This effort will build trust and collaboration between public health agencies and the communities they serve. Through these equity-centered initiatives, CHIP aims to contribute to the PHIG vision of shaping tomorrow’s public health today.
The Emergency Preparedness project at MPHI highlights the importance of workforce capacity-building, research, and deep collaborations to address the needs of aging and aging people with disabilities in Michigan. Aging and aging people with disabilities (A/APWD) or adults 65 years old and over are often referred to as a single group. Still, they are part of a diverse population with a wide range of needs, particularly when facing natural disasters, pandemics, or other life-threatening everyday situations. Unfortunately, most A/APWD and their families do not have an emergency preparedness plan, which makes them vulnerable before, during, and after an emergency, even more so if they have a chronic condition or disability.
The Center for Health Innovation & Practice works closely with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), the Michigan State Independent Living Council (MiSILC), and other disability and aging specialists in developing person-centered emergency preparedness plans. Specifically, this project supports professionals working with the A/APWD populations. Through research and conversations with collaborators, CHIP coordinates and spearheads the production of emergency preparedness toolkits for health and disaster professionals to use with clients during meetings or as they coach clients in developing individualized plans relevant to their needs. In addition to producing toolkits, CHIP develops training materials and implementation and outcome evaluation strategies to gauge toolkit effectiveness and contribute to broader initiatives that support health professionals in bringing emergency resources closer to those who need them.
Trinity Health’s Transforming Communities Initiative (TCI) The Transforming Communities Initiative (TCI) is a community partner and health system collaborative bolstered by the distribution of financial resources and technical assistance. It brings together Trinity Health, its Regional Health Ministries (RHMs), community-based organizations, and residents to advance health and racial equity. CHIP serves as a technical assistance provider working directly with the Northeast Philadelphia TCI community through the following activities: providing TA on integrating a racial equity lens through the TCI project and supporting and facilitating cross-site capacity building and multi-sector collaborative development.
Supporting families is a priority of Michigan’s public mental health system, as evidenced by the Family Support Subsidy Program (FSSP). Michigan’s philosophy is that children with intellectual and developmental disabilities, like all children, need loving and enduring family relationships. The policy of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) is that children should be supported to live with their families. If an out-of-home placement becomes necessary, it should be temporary and time-limited with a goal of family reunification whenever possible or, for some children, adoption. Permanency planning practices within Michigan’s public mental health system have supported this guiding principle by enabling families to keep their children out of institutional settings and other out-of-home placements.
The Family Support Subsidy Act, Public Act 249 of 1983, was the beginning of a major shift of Michigan’s mental health resources and services toward supporting, maintaining, and establishing permanent family relationships for children with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities. The FSSP provides vital monetary support for families of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities to assist with the extraordinary expenses associated with raising them.
Children with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities often need lifetime support for daily activities such as walking, feeding, or dressing. Often, they have both mental and physical impairments and require 24-hour care. As a result, the families of children with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities incur many expenses that other families do not. The FSSP recognizes that these families have unique needs; it empowers them to decide what is needed to support their child’s care, and it allows children to stay at home and out of residential placements.
Workshops
These dialogue-based sessions are led by trained co-facilitators and seek to illuminate racism, classism, and other types of oppression as root causes of health inequity. The workshop consists of two consecutive days followed by a third day 1 – 2 weeks later. Over the course of the three days, participants:
- Learn language and conceptual frameworks that enable them to engage in difficult conversations about oppression and unearned privilege as experienced in the United States and focus on practical analysis and application of health equity concepts to real-life scenarios.
- Explore the meaning of cultural identity across groups.
- Begin to understand the necessity and value of addressing racism and other forms of oppression explicitly as root causes of health inequity.
- Practice analyzing case studies in a social justice/health equity framework.
- Identify potential avenues and opportunities for advancing health equity through one’s work and personal life.
The workshop employs each of the following as catalysts for dialogue:
- The lived experience of participants.
- Language constructs that help illuminate oppression and privilege in American society.
- Practical analysis and application of health equity concepts to real-life scenarios.
In facilitating dialogue on subjects that may be uncomfortable for some participants, workshop leaders take great pains to ensure that 1) the point-of-view of the workshop is transparent from the outset, and that 2) disagreement with that point-of-view is welcomed and encouraged as part of the process of coming to terms with cultural forces that normally discourage a frank discussion of racism, other types of oppression, and their impact on the public’s health.
The workshop cohort must be a minimum of 15 people and a maximum size of 25.
For more information about our Health Equity and Social Justice Workshop please email: chep@mphi.org
Learning Labs
With the rising awareness that health equity is important, there are at least two challenges that public health professionals face. The first is developing a clear understanding of what the term means. The second challenge is to determine how to intentionally focus on health equity in our daily work. It is common in discussions about health equity to hear references to using a ‘health equity framework’ – but it is just as common for people to not know what that means in both form and content. The Learning Lab sessions are designed to provide a definition of the concept and guide work groups through a process they can use to act intentionally and strategically to advance health equity within their work.
Learning Lab sessions are a total of 16 hours of contact time spread across five meetings with group work in between the sessions. Typically there are 3 or more weeks between sessions. The five areas of focus include:
- Session 1 – where have we been, where are we going? (Review of key concepts) – 2 hours
- Session 2 – where we are (analysis of organizational assessment data) – 4 hours
- Session 3 – what can we do? (Identifying ideas for potential projects) – 3 hours
- Session 4 – what will we do? (Developing specific project plans) – 3 hours
- Session 5 – commitment to action (presentation of plans to key partners) – 4 hours
The Learning Labs include an additional 6 hours of contact time for 3, 6, and 12 month follow up accountability sessions. Each follow up meeting is two hours in length. For more information about our Health Equity and Social Justice Learning Labs please email: chep@mphi.org
Consultation Services
CHEP staff used Technology of Participation (ToP) and other proven facilitation methods to support organizations and communities that want to put equity and social justice principles into practice. For example, we provide assistance with strategic planning, designing and facilitating staff retreats, developing and delivering Board learning opportunities, and creating and implementing projects. In all of these areas, CHEP staff help our clients and partners ‘do’ equity in ways that are informed by their own specific community and organizational context.
For more information about our Health Equity and Social Justice Consultation Services please email: chep@mphi.org
Location & Info
Center for Health Innovation & Practice
2501 Jolly Rd.
Suite 180
Okemos, MI 48864
Ph: 517-324-8311
Fax: 517-324-6027
chip@mphi.org
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