Welcome to WPHA’s Public Health Workforce Resource webpage.  This page is intended to be a resource for those who are increasing the capacity of Wisconsin’s public health workforce.  Here you will find information from projects, reports, and other activities.  Please email us if you have links, information or material you would like to add. 

Stepping Up to the Challenge: Wisconsin's Public Health Workforce Call to Action identifies a specific plan for advancing Wisconsin's public health workforce. It is intentionally focused on the short time frame of 2008 to 2010 and will lay the foundation for 2020 goals.

The plans, found in Appendix F of the document or below, are the result of three workgroups: sufficiency, diversity and competency. Workgroup members are continuing with implementation. Workplans will be updated as progress is made. Additional background information for each of these areas is also provided below.

Sufficiency
Sufficiency Workplan (June 2008 version)

Summary of Sufficiency Workgroup with Proposed Model
Public Sector Public Health Workforce Projections

Diversity
Diversity Workplan (June 2008 version)

IOM Report on Ensuring Diversity

Competency
Competency Workplan (June 2008 version)

 

Sustaining the Effort

Commitments to Action

On July 23, 2008, the Call to Action project held a kick-off event for its Stepping Up to the Challenge:  Wisconsin’s Public Health Workforce Call to Action document.  The kick-off event was held at the Wisconsin Public Health Association – Wisconsin Association of Local Health Departments and Boards (WPHA-WALHDAB) Annual Conference in Madison.  The session was attended by approximately 140 individuals. 

Each of those attending was asked to make at least one commitment to advancing public health workforce efforts in Wisconsin.  Over 150 commitments were posted by the attendees. Individuals committed to participating on a Call to Action workgroup, precepting, mentoring, continuing to learn about workforce issues, distributing information on how great a career in public health is, and much more. If you have made a commitment, please continue to meet it. If you have not made one yet, we encourage you to do so now.

Wisconsin Public Health Workforce Leadership Consortium

As part of the project, a Wisconsin Public Health Workforce Leadership Consortium was developed. The partners involved in the project were dedicated to the long-term success of the project, and the priority of workforce development.  To those ends, the partners identified the need for an overarching body to assure that the work continued to move forward and to address overarching policy issues.  Thus, the Public Health Workforce Leadership Consortium was created.

The Public Health Workforce Leadership Consortium (PHWLC) is comprised of key leaders in workforce development from across the state.  These leaders are change agents within their organizations and influencers of policy at multiple levels.  They are from both the demand (e.g., employers) and supply (e.g., schools) sides of public health workforce development, and have high allegiance to the state health plan.  The Wisconsin Public Health Association and the Division of Public Health will facilitate the convening of the PHWLC.  For a more detailed description of the Consortium, click here.

Call to Action Project Background

This website was developed as part of a 18-month planning process from July 2007 through December 2008. Partners on the Healthier Wisconsin Partnership Program grant-funded project include the Wisconsin Public Health Association (WPHA) as fiscal agent with organizational partners being the Wisconsin Division of Public Health (DPH), Wisconsin Association of Local Health Departments and Boards (WALHDAB), Wisconsin Area Health Education Center System (AHEC), and the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW).

The purpose of the project as described in the proposal was “first to advance the Healthiest Wisconsin 2010 public health workforce system priority focused on diversity, sufficiency, and competency by developing and disseminating a Call to Action report, and second to develop a sustainable process that generates a commitment to action and strong partnerships between broad public health system partners.”

The partners held a Public HealthWorkforce Summit for Wisconsin in February 2008 to ignite the planning process for a 'Call to Action' report. Posted below are materials from the Summit.

• Call to Action and Summit 1-page Summary
• Agenda
• Power point presentation -- Overview and Background
• Definition of the Public Health Workforce
• Summary of Breakout Groups (same as Workgroups)
• Public Health Workforce Environmental Scan

Three workgroups, centered around diversity, sufficiency and competency, continued the planning process through June 2008. Input was solicited on preliminary elements of the 'Call to Action' report in May-June 2008. Results from an online survey inviting comments on the sufficiency, diversity and competency workplans can be found here.

With the July 23 kick-off event at the Wisconsin Public Health Association-Wisconsin Association of Local Health Departments and Boards (WPHA-WALHDAB) annual conference in Madison, implementation of Stepping Up to the Challenge: Wisconsin's Public Health Workforce Call to Action began.

State Health Plan Implementation Plan
Healthiest Wisconsin 2010: An Implementation Plan to Improve the Health of the Public. The Implementation Plan contains detailed strategies for how public health partners are working to achieve the goals of the State Health Plan. (Click on the Implementation Plan and see pages 65-68 for the Workforce Priority.)

State Health Plan Workforce Priority Logic Models

State Health Plan Committee Policy Recommendations (Report to the Public Health Council, October 12, 2007)