Sharing learnings from a 6-year partnership with the Cooperative Extension System

In 2019, CCHE began our partnership with the Cooperative Extension System to evaluate its Well Connected Communities (WCC) initiative. WCC was part of a nine-year, $16.8 million investment by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to advance health equity and well-being efforts across the system. WCC aimed to leverage Extension’s expansive reach and long history working at national, state, and local levels to catalyze systems change, build capacity, and help ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to live a better, healthier life.

CCHE collaborated closely with national Extension leaders on a range of efforts to support multiple stages of a systems change process. This included gathering information and developing tools the system can use to:

• Better understand the system overall and its current state.
• Assess progress and capture learnings to inform implementation strategies.
• Communicate and broadly share the story of Extension’s growing capacity and position as a key partner for health-related work across the country.

Well Connected Communities (WCC) final evaluation report: This report offers a detailed look into all aspects of the WCC initiative. The WCC evaluation identified six key findings that illustrate Extension’s progress in key components of systems change*—including structural, relational, and transformative changes—and the contributions of the WCC investments to advancing health equity and well-being.

* model informed by the FSG systems change framework, The Water of Systems Change.

Evaluation of WCC-funded sites: The WCC initiative included sub-grants to 25 land grant universities to partner with local, cross-sector coalitions in over 50 communities across the country. These community-based collaborative efforts promoted broader systems change within Extension to advance health equity and well-being. This final report articulates what it takes for Extension to effectively partner with communities to ensure everyone has an equal opportunity to live a better, healthier life.

National Extension readiness assessment: Cooperative Extension’s National Framework for Health Equity and Well-Being provides the system with a roadmap for improving the health of communities. CCHE led the implementation of a national readiness assessment for implementing the Framework across Extension. This article shares assessment results, provides ideas for how Extension practitioners can engage in this work, and shares an action plan developed from results.

Examples of tools the system can use to understand and advance its health equity and well-being work

Extension’s national health and well-being infrastructure survey: Extension deepened and expanded its health and well-being work over the last decade. To better understand how Extension is changing internally to better support health and well-being work, CCHE administered a national survey to gather information from land-grant universities across the system about their health-related staffing, structures, and funding. The survey tool was developed soc that Extension can continue to use it to understand changes in health and well-being infrastructure over time.

Assets for Advancing Health Extension - A team-based assessment tool for land-grant universities: Extension leaders and staff requested additional guidance for concrete steps they could take to operationalize the vision laid out in Cooperative Extension’s National Framework for Health Equity & Well-being. With pilot site partners, CCHE developed a self-assessment tool for Extension teams at various levels to understand their institution’s current systems, policies, and practices. The tool includes guidance for using assessment results to inform group dialogue and planning.