1602-11947

Virginia: Support to Smart Beginnings Virginia Peninsula (SBVP) to act as a lead convener in the Virginia Peninsula community as part of the Grassroots Engagement Strategy. SBVP has a focus on supporting the health of all children in the community to prepare them to enter the education system ready to learn and succeed in school. Oral Health 2020 investment of $100,000 will be used to simultaneously focus energy and attention on more specific issues and opportunities in the SBVP service area, and to organize their work differently to strengthen engagement and involve more stakeholders. On the organizing side, SBVP intends to be more proactive in identifying, reaching out to, and engaging more stakeholder organizations and community residents – particularly from the school systems; from under-represented communities (e.g., Williamsburg and Gloucester); and from health equity and social justice organizations. While SBVP will maintain their larger Planning Group (nearly 70 community-based organizations are involved), they anticipate that group will have fewer meetings with more focused agendas as efforts shift to deeper and authentic community engagement efforts. Members of their Planning Group who have the interest, expertise and capacity to be more involved will be asked to serve on Outreach and Engagement Teams that will help them make concrete progress on community-driven Focus Areas and Goals during Year Two. Their Core Group will be reconfigured as well, with participants having specific expertise around the Focus Areas they have chosen to pursue as a community in Year Two. This investment aligns with the Oral Health 2020 focus of improving the public perception of the value of oral health.