1702-12971

Florida: Support to the Human Services Coalition of Dade County, Inc. (Catalyst Miami) to act as a lead convener in the Miami community as part of the Grassroots Engagement Strategy. Catalyst Miami amplifies the voice of low-to-moderate income and marginalized individuals and families in Miami-Dade County to improve their quality of life through self-empowerment, advocacy, and capacity-building programs for community based organizations, and the facilitation of networks around improved health. Catalyst Miami’s key successes in Year 2 included providing training to 11 local community leaders on current realities and obstacles to oral health in Miami-Dade county; recruiting two youth from Gang Alternative to conduct environmental scans in their communities; hosting the Brush Like You Mean It social media campaign for the National Children’s Dental Health Month; and convening the Miami-Dade Oral Health Equity Summit to re-engage grassroots organizations, community leaders, oral health experts, and other key stakeholders in a discussion to better understand oral health assets, gaps, and opportunities in Miami-Dade County, while developing new approaches to strengthen grassroots oral health community engagement. Oral Health 2020 investment of $100,000 will be used to promote education and awareness among members of the Miami-Dade community, and supporting collaborative advocacy efforts to influence elected leaders at the local and state levels to recognize oral health as an integral part of overall health, and therefore as a social equity issue. Specific deliverables include increasing awareness and education of health and oral health equity among students, families, and elected officials; increasing value-based, effectively-framed oral health messages in public health dialogue; supporting alignment among partners and advocates around the inclusion of oral health; and identifying key champions to support legislative and executive branch leaders. All of these objectives will be fulfilled by employing Catalyst Miami’s core methodology of building local networks, reaching non-traditional stakeholders, and sharing pertinent, consistent, and accurate information broadly across Miami-Dade County. All actions described in the proposal work plan for the Year 3 work were organized around the systems change framework (policy, financing, care and community). This proposal aligns with the Oral Health 2020 Goal 6 of improving the public perception of the value of oral health to overall health and the target that oral health is increasingly included in health dialogue and public policy.