Fifteen teams of rising public health and community leaders from around the country have been selected to participate in the inaugural cohort of the Public Health Regenerative Leadership Synergy (PHEARLESS) initiative.

Supported by an investment of more than $8.5 million from The Kresge Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the de Beaumont Foundation, the PHEARLESS initiative integrates regenerative leadership education and experiential learning with innovative collaborative tools that will help public health and community leaders build the skills they need to co-create sustainable solutions that advance health equity and well-being for all.

As a holistic, strengths-based and adaptive approach to leadership, regenerative leadership focuses on creating positive change and restoring balance in complex living systems. By creating positive relationships and nurturing the interconnected elements within a system, regenerative leaders aim to generate outcomes that benefit everyone.

“PHEARLESS leaders know how to forge partnerships that result in community-led public health efforts on the ground,” said Monica Valdes Lupi, managing director of Kresge’s Health Program. “Authentic community engagement can improve the public’s health for generations to come.”

Each four-person team includes two rising public health leaders and two rising community leaders. Together, the cohort will form a network that will learn from one another and help create new models for community-led efforts to improve equitable health outcomes community-wide.

“Strong partnerships between government and community are necessary to achieve meaningful change and improve health outcomes. Through the PHEARLESS program, we look forward to facilitating and strengthening such partnerships in communities across the country, and I am excited to welcome our inaugural cohort,” said Brian C. Castrucci, president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation.

Through the 12-month PHEARLESS experience, comprising four learning modules and a culminating capstone activity, participants will develop the mindset and skills to transform systems, structures and policies, in partnership with community, toward a just and equitable future. Each four-person team will receive a $100,000 grant to support their activities.

The cohort includes teams from the following communities:

• Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Buffalo, New York
• Colorado City, Arizona
• Columbia, South Carolina
• Hillsborough, Florida
• Jackson County, Missouri
• Lee County, Mississippi
• Long Beach, California
• Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Mobile, Alabama
• New Orleans, Louisiana
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Saint Johnsbury, Vermont
• San Francisco, California
• Seattle, Washington

The University of South Florida (USF) College of Public Health (COPH) and Muma College of Business (MCOB) co-lead the design and implementation of the training and technical assistance. The COPH also partners with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, the Big Cities Health Coalition, and the National Association of County and City Officials as an interdisciplinary support network.

“Today’s complex community health issues require learning and acting together. PHEARLESS leaders will not only develop themselves as leaders but also work respectfully in partnership to inclusively engage the public, build civic muscle and create the conditions in which all can thrive,” said Dr. Marissa Levine, director of the COPH’s Center for Leadership in Public Health Practice.

Questions? Contact COPH-CLPHP@usf.edu

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Two USF College of Public Health (COPH) staff members took on new leadership positions with the Florida Public Health Association (FPHA), the professional organization for public health workers in Florida.

The leaderships changes took effect during the FPHA’s annual meeting, held in Orlando in July.

Allison Rapp, MPH, moved to first vice president of the group while Parnia Roghani Shareef, who received her MPH from the college, moved to second vice president. Both Rapp and Roghani Shareef are program planner analysts with the COPH’s Center for Leadership in Public Health Practice.

COPH DrPH student Kelli Agrawal currently serves as the FPHA’s student engagement committee co-chair.

The FPHA membership elects the second vice president, who serves a one-year term. Every year the officers move up—from second vice president to first vice president to president and immediate past president. All in all, officers serve for four years.

“When I moved to Florida in 2014, I knew I needed to network and one of the first things I did was find the FPHA,” Rapp said. “In fact, I moved at the end of June that year and the conference was in July. I’ve taken on numerous roles throughout the years with FPHA including member-at-large and treasurer. In an effort to continue to develop as a leader, I wanted to take on FPHA leadership roles and here I am—vice president.”

Rapp said two of her major responsibilities will be planning the annual conference and expanding the reach of the FPHA.

“I like to think that there is not a single issue we are faced with, across all areas, that is not connected to public health,” Rapp said. “Give me an issue you think is not a public health issue and I will explain to you why it is. That said, I want to bring other sectors—from business to education and more—to understand that they should be interested in public health, join the FPHA and come to our amazing conference.”

Roghani Shareef said strengthening connections with those inside and outside public health will be her focus as well.

“I hope to accomplish a successful mentorship program, which I helped launch last year,” she said. “I also hope to continue to collaborate across different sectors. As Allison mentioned, what isn’t public health? Having those connections and networks will really enhance our efforts in public health.”

Roghani Shareef was also recognized with the FPHA’s Meritorious Service Award, which is given annually to an FPHA member who has a record of making outstanding contributions to the FPHA in the field of public health.

“I feel honored not only to be nominated and receive this award from one of my role models [Venise White, FPHA’s immediate past president], but to know that the work I am doing is making an impact,” Roghani Shareef said. “It feels amazing and brings me one step closer to changing the world!”

Also recognized by the FPHA at their annual meeting was alum Nicole Sutton, who received the Robert D. May M.D. Award. The award is given to a public health worker and FPHA member who has demonstrated significant accomplishments advancing public health at local or state levels.

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

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The number of Americans 65 and older will more than double by 2060—and not everyone has a shot at living out their golden years with good health and well-being.

Recognizing that public health professionals are poised to promote longer and healthier lives for all Americans, Drs. Marissa Levine, a USF College of Public Health (COPH) professor of public health practice, and Kathy Black, a COPH affiliate professor and professor in USF’s School of Aging Studies, developed the Equitable Healthy Aging Toolkit. They were supported in their efforts by the Trust for America’s Health and the National Association of City and County Health Officials.

The toolkit was funded by a grant from AARP.

The Equitable Healthy Aging Toolkit aims to increase the capacity of public health departments to enhance equitable health and well-being of older adults and promote healthy aging across the life course in community health improvement practice.

“Kathy and I have been talking to public health leaders not only about the systems in our communities that perpetuate health disparities, particularly in the aging community, but also how to change or evolve those systems so they produce better, more equitable health outcomes,” said Levine, explaining the impetus behind the toolkit.

“People don’t just end up at age 65 with health conditions,” Black added. “Everything that came before it affects health later in life. And some people are disadvantaged from an early age. Maybe they had a low birth weight, or they were hungry during school, or they didn’t finish high school or they worked in manual labor. All these midstream factors affect where you end up, health-wise, later in life.”

The toolkit includes sections on equitable healthy aging principles (for example, that healthy aging is a basic human right), developing an age-friendly public health system framework (e.g., conducting needs assessments on older adults) and identifying and leveraging strategies and resources that advance equitable healthy aging.

“Interestingly, older Americans are less engaged with public health systems [than their younger counterparts],” Levine said. “We thought the toolkit would be helpful for public health departments as they perform their community needs assessments and community improvement plans. We wanted to bring attention to the systems that public health professionals can influence.”

So far, says Black, health departments are reacting favorably to the toolkit.

“In five of our counties in Florida, a third of the population is over 65,” said Black. “The toolkit gives them guidance and resources on how they can integrate healthy aging concepts and principles into their services. I hope this toolkit helps every person in public health recognize the entire lifespan, using an age lens and not just a health lens, across all the work they do.”

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

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In an effort to strengthen the U.S. public health system, three national philanthropic nonprofits have awarded the University of South Florida more than $8.5 million in grants to train the nation’s public health leaders in collaboration and leadership skills.

The grant is in response to a badly depleted, post-pandemic public health care workforce where workers are understaffed, overworked and in dire need of strong leadership.

That is where USF is stepping in.

“Our public health leaders and managers need to foster a community where there is open and honest, true collaboration amongst its members,” said Dr. Triparna de Vreede, an expert in collaboration science and organizational psychology at the USF Muma College of Business and one of the co-investigators of the project.

“Regenerative leadership emphasizes holistic, sustainable and long-term thinking where the leader is a facilitator and a voice of the community rather than the hero leading the charge. We need to build regenerative leaders in the public health space to utilize all the assets in the community,” de Vreede said, who serves as an associate director in the School of Information Systems and Management. 

Led by Dr. Marissa Levine, a USF College of Public Health (COPH) professor of public health practice and the principal investigator, the grant will establish the national program office for the Public Health Regenerative Leadership Synergy, dubbed PHEARLESS, within the COPH’s Center for Leadership in Public Health Practice.

Another co-investigator on the grant is Jennifer Marshall, an associate professor at the COPH.

Through this grant, USF leaders will lead a one-year training program and distribute $100,000 grants to help organizations participating in the program.

“We’re taking an approach called regenerative leadership—which is thinking about our communities as living systems and not machines — and figuring out how to better work together in complex contexts, like what we went through with COVID, and how to get a shared vision where people all have the opportunity to thrive,” Levine said.

The USF interdisciplinary team will co-lead the design and implementation of the training.

The PHEARLESS initiative is being funded by The Kresge Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the de Beaumont Foundation in an effort to strengthen the nation’s public health system.

Nearly half of U.S. state and local healthcare workers left their jobs between 2017 and 2021, exacerbating an existing workforce shortage, according to a data analysis of the Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey, conducted by the de Beaumont Foundation and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

Here’s how the PHEARLESS program works:

• The one-year leadership development training is open to public health professionals from across the country. Its inaugural cohort kicks off in September. Organizers are soliciting applications now and have extended the application deadline to close at 3 p.m. July 14.
• PHEARLESS program leaders will dole out community grants to 15 selected teams. Each team consists of two public health professionals and two community leaders. Teams will participate in virtual and in-person sessions.
• Selected teams will receive a $100,000 grant to support their activities to improve the public’s health and $9,000 stipends for each of the two community leaders.

PHEARLESS is unique in that it gives public health department leaders an opportunity to reimagine their roles in creating healthy communities that are community-led and centered in equality, organizers said.

“We really need to think differently about how we approach leadership in public health and what are we going to do about assuring more equitable outcomes in health and communities,” Levine said.

The College of Public Health will also partner with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, the Big Cities Health Coalition, and the National Association of County and City Officials as an interdisciplinary support network.

To learn more about the criteria and how to apply, visit the PHEARLESS initiative website. Applications are due July 14.

Story By Elizabeth L. Brown. Reposted from USF News.

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Applications are now open for a new initiative that will bring rising public health leaders together with community leaders to co-create sustainable collaborative solutions that advance health and well-being for all.

Supported by an investment of more than $8.5 million from The Kresge Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the de Beaumont Foundation, the PHEARLESS (Public Health Regenerative Leadership Synergy) initiative will integrate regenerative leadership education and experiential learning with innovative collaborative tools that will help public health and community leaders build the skills they need to tackle the complex issues facing their communities today.

As a holistic, strengths-based and adaptive approach, regenerative leadership focuses on creating positive change and restoring balance in complex living systems, said Monica Valdes Lupi, managing director of Kresge’s Health Program. 

“Regenerative leadership prioritizes empathy, collaboration, collaborative learning and systems thinking over traditional top-down hierarchical models of leadership,” Lupi said. “By creating positive relationships and nurturing the interconnected elements within a system, regenerative leaders aim to generate outcomes that benefit everyone.”

“New challenges that public health departments are facing require governmental public health leaders to develop and grow new skills and relationships in order to meet the needs of the people and communities they serve,” said Simbo Ige, MD, MPH, managing director at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. 

The rapid shift and scale-up of responsibilities for state and local governmental public health agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic impact on the public health workforce.

According to a recent analysis of data from the Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS), conducted by the de Beaumont Foundation and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), nearly half of state and local public health employees left their jobs between 2017 and 2021, exacerbating an existing workforce shortage.

“This critical loss of public health expertise and experience puts communities at significant risk for infectious diseases and other health crises,” said Brian C. Castrucci, DrPH, president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation. 

For the 2023-2024 cohort of the initiative, 15 teams of PHEARLESS leaders will be selected from communities around the country. Each four-person team will include two rising public health leaders and two rising community leaders. Together, the cohort will form a network that will learn from one another and help create new models for community-led efforts to improve equitable health outcomes community-wide.

Participants in the 12-month program will work through four modules and a culminating capstone activity, including both virtual sessions and an in-person component. Each team will receive a grant of $100,000 to support their activities. 

Drs. Marissa Levine and Jennifer Marshall of the University of South Florida (USF) College of Public Health (COPH) and Dr. Triparna de Vreede at the USF Muma College of Business (MCOB) will co-lead the design and implementation of the training and technical assistance. The COPH will also partner with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, the Big Cities Health Coalition and the National Association of County and City Officials as an interdisciplinary support network.

“One of the ways regenerative leadership can be achieved is through true collaboration and the effective facilitation of ideas. To be good leaders, we must be good facilitators and relentless collaborators,” said de Vreede, associate professor of instruction at the USF Muma College of Business.

“While the pandemic has definitely pushed their limits, this moment presents a truly unique opportunity for public health department leaders to reimagine their unique role in co-creating thriving community health ecosystems and delivering services that are explicitly centered in equity and racial justice,” Lupi said. “By the end of the PHEARLESS experience, leaders will develop the mindset and skillset to transform systems, structures and policies, in partnership with the community, toward a just and equitable future.”

To learn more about the initiative and how to apply, visit https://health.usf.edu/publichealth/clphp/phrls.  

Applications are due July 14, 2023.

Reposted from the Kresge Foundation

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Get ready!

Applications for the 2023-24 cohort of Public Health Regenerative Leadership Synergy (PHEARLESS), a new grant and leadership enhancement opportunity based on the principles of regenerative leadership, will open next month.

PHEARLESS will support up to 15 teams, each comprising two community leaders and two governmental public health leaders from the same jurisdiction. These rising leaders will learn together to further develop their abilities to collaborate across diverse groups and develop and act in alignment toward a common vision in which all can reach their full potential and thrive. 

Now is a great time to gather your teams and prepare to apply: 

• Connect with other rising leaders in your jurisdiction to identify the team members who want to make the most of this opportunity to forge deeper, more meaningful and lasting relationships.  This is your opportunity to continue your work to enhance the health and well-being of all in your community and to do so by learning from the wisdom of living systems.    
• Lay the groundwork for support from key individuals and organizations.
• Assess the current state of your community’s efforts to promote health and start to identify the community systems you seek to better understand and redesign. 

Questions? Contact COPH-CLPHP@usf.edu 

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Eight recent graduates of the USF College of Public Health (COPH) Public Health Executive Leadership Program (PHELP) have been promoted to health officer/administrator positions at health departments across the state.

Health officers within the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) are the lead public health officials for the counties in which they serve. They are responsible for their department’s operations and any response to community public health events, concerns or disasters.

After a hiatus of several years, the COPH revived PHELP with the aim of teaching and reinforcing leadership skills among early-to-mid career FDOH managers and supervisors who have demonstrated leadership potential. Since its resurrection four years ago, 75 FDOH employees have graduated from the program.

“The program provides those who enroll with new skills and knowledge, but maybe, most importantly, the opportunity for personal leadership development,” Dr. Marissa Levine, a professor of public health practice and director of the Center for Leadership in Public Health Practice, said. “That includes enhancement of the mindset necessary to be a successful leader.” 

The eight PHELP grads recently promoted to health officer include:

“I wanted to take part to learn how to be a better leader, to network and ultimately to advance in the field of public health,” said Kimberly Kossler, who served as a disease intervention specialist, an epidemiologist, a program manager and in other capacities before being named health officer of Collier County in Dec. 2020. 

“I serve as the local lead public health official to provide direction, management, leadership and evaluation of a wide variety of complex and multi-faceted community public health programs,” she added. “This role is an essential part of the Florida public health system and is responsible for assessing, maintaining and improving the health and safety of the entire community.”

Kossler said taking part in the program was essential to advancing her career. 

“The program provided an opportunity to meet other colleagues who had similar ambitions, exchange experiences and share knowledge,” she said. “It gave me a chance to demonstrate my interest and desire to continue to advance my career in public health while learning valuable ways to improve my leadership skills.”

Meaghan Crowley, who at the time she was enrolled in the program served as director of community health in Marion County, agrees. 

“PHELP was an invaluable experience in my leadership journey, which still serves me on a daily basis, even today,” said Crowley, now health officer/administrator in Baker County. “Drs. Levine and Masys [a former COPH associate professor involved in the program] set the foundation by including a myriad of advanced leadership topics such as adaptive leadership, systems thinking, change management, appreciative inquiry, complexity in public health, communication and partnership, to name a few. Rather than merely ‘teaching’ us leadership, they acted as our champions in our leadership journey. I was able to implement many of these lessons while at DOH-Marion and feel they have served me even more in my current role as the DOH-Baker health officer/administrator.”

Crowley said she was so impressed by her PHELP experience, she decided to enroll in the COPH DrPH program with a concentration in Advanced Practice Leadership in Public Health. 

“I have felt supported, encouraged and inspired by all the COPH faculty in my continued leadership journey,” she stated. “I can say without a doubt that [the program] has unquestionably helped me not only in my journey to become a health officer, but to create a culture of quality and excellence at DOH-Baker, where staff are encouraged to be leaders themselves, no matter their position, and to create positive change to better serve our community and one another.”

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

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