CARE
Catholic Medical
   Mission Board
Catholic Relief
   Services
ChildFund
   International
Concern Worldwide
Counterpart
   International
Curamericas Global Episcopal Relief and
   Development
Food For the Hungry
Freedom From
    Hunger
Future Generations
Global Health Action
GOAL
Handicap
   International
Health Alliance
   International

Health and

Development

International

HealthRight
International
Helen Keller
International
Hesperian Health
Guides

IMA World Health
International Medical
   Corps
International Relief
   and Development
International Rescue
   Committee
MCDI
Medical Teams
   International
Mercy Corps
Operation Smile
Partners for
   Development
PATH
Pathfinder
   International
PCI
Plan International
   USA
Population Services
   International
Project C.U.R.E
Project HOPE
Relief International
Salvation Army
   World Service Office
Samaritan's Purse
Save the Children
WellShare
   International
White Ribbon Alliance
   for Safe Motherhood
World Relief
World Renew
World Vision

ASSOCIATE

ORGANIZATIONS

American College of
   Nurse-Midwives
Christian Blind
   Mission-US
Christian Connections
   for International
   Health
Community Partners
   International
D-Tree International

Edesia

FHI360

Georgetown University,

Institute for

Reproductive Health

Global Alliance to

Prevent Prematurity

and Stillbirth

(GAPPS)

Grandmother
Project
ICF International

International Union
   Against
   Tuberculosis &
   Lung Disease
IntraHealth
   International
Jhpiego

Johns Hopkins
   Bloomberg School
   of Public Health-
   Dept. of
   International Health

Johns Hopkins

University Center for

Communication

Programs

JSI Research &

Training Institute, Inc

Liverpool Associates
   in Tropical Health
Loma Linda
   University School of
Public Health- Dept.

of Global Health

Medair

Planet Aid

University Research
Co., LLC
Women's Refugee
Commission

INDIVIDUAL

ASSOCIATES

William Brady
Amelia Brandt
Jean Capps
Loretta Dostal

Kayt Erdahl
Carrie Foti
Paul Freeman
Devasena
Gnanashanmugam
Ruth Hope
Susan Kingston
Bonnie Kittle
Grace Kreulen
Sue Leonard

Judy Lewis
W. Meredith Long
Karen McClure
Judiann McNulty
Kenneth Muko
Leonora Nyawata
Marydean Purves
Jessica Rockwood
David Shanklin
Donna Sillan
Joanne Spicehandler

Circey Trevant
Doreen Weatherby
Sandy Wilcox
Anne Wilson

MCHIP Close-out Event

June 26, 2014

Washington, DC

More than 400 colleagues -- including Ministers of Health from 23 countries and USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah -- gathered at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., to celebrate MCHIP's successes. Since 2008, in over 50 developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Program has worked to improve the health of women and their families. MCHIP supported programming in maternal, newborn and child health, immunization, family planning, nutrition, malaria and HIV/AIDS, and has been successful in taking high-level impact interventions to scale around the world.

CORE Group Executive Director Karen LeBan presented on the new CHW guide: Developing and Strengthening Community Health Worker Programs at Scale: A Reference Guide and Case Studies for Program Managers and Policy Makers.

Watch the video here and view the presentation slides here.

New Maternal and Child Survival Program

CORE Group is a partner in the United States Government's new flagship effort to end preventable maternal and child deaths in the developing world - the Maternal and Child Survival Project. CORE Group is honored to join fellow partners Jhpiego, Save the Children, John Snow, Inc. (JSI), ICF International, Results for Development Institute, PATH, and Population Services International (PSI). This agreement, supported by USAID, will accelerate the expansion of innovative, high-impact health approaches in 24 priority countries to save the lives of every woman and child in need.

CORE Group brings to the Maternal and Child Survival Project its valuable expertise in knowledge generation, knowledge management, community health strengthening, civil society engagement, and expanding partnerships and learning.

Dory Storms Award Winner: Dr. Pieter Ernst

It is with great pleasure that we announce that Dr. Pieter Ernst is the winner of the 2014 Dory Storms Child Survival Recognition Award!

His innovation, Care Groups, has now been used by over 27 organizations in 23 countries, training an estimated 106,000 Care Group Volunteers that reach at least 1.3 million households.

Read Dr. Ernst's full bio here.

NEW: The Role of Social Accountability in Improving Health Outcomes

Engaging communities and community-based workers will enable governments to achieve levels of under-5 mortality according to their commitments. Models involving International NGOs that used a social accountability approach in various sectors and at different levels including community, district, and national level, were reviewed as part of this paper and are presented regarding the processes undertaken to increase accountability and improve health outcomes.

This paper presents common themes, challenges, and recommendations to expand and bring this approach to scale in the context of health and development.

Save the date for skill building, networking, and program learning at our upcoming Fall 2014

Global Health Practitioner Conference!

More information coming soon here.

CORE Group Staff Updates

We extend our sincerest gratitude to our Communications Manager Pinky Patel and Community Health Program Manager Shannon Downey for their years of dedication and endless contributions to CORE Group. We wish them all the best in their new endeavors, and we will forever appreciate the warmth, ingenuity, and inspiration they brought to the CORE Group community.

----

We are now hiring to fill these positions, so please spread the word among your networks:

Communications and Partnerships Manager

Community Health and Civil Society Advisor

TOPS/FSN Network Knowledge Sharing Meeting

July 10 - 11, 2014

Washington, DC

The Knowledge Sharing Meeting brought together over 200 food security practitioners and donors from across the country and around the world to learn about new tools and practices, gain skills for building stronger, more resilient food security programming, and discuss how to incorporate knowledge management into your everyday work.

CORE Group staff presented on knowledge management, storytelling, and consortium management.

View all presentations, as well as videos of the keynote and plenary sessions, here.

Care Group Technical Advisory Group Meeting

May 29 - 30, 2014

Washington, DC

CORE Group received a micro-grant from the Technical and Operational Performance Support (TOPS) Program to conduct an expert review on the scale-up of Care Groups as a behavior change strategy for improving nutrition and maternal and child health.

The Technical Advisory Group (TAG) meeting brought together 36 practitioners and researchers in the Care Group approach in order to review recent evaluations and provide guidance related to mainstreaming the Care Group approach beyond the NGO community and improving current programming.

A policy briefer will be released soon. View the presentations from the meeting here.

CUGH Presentation

May 10 - 12, 2014

Washington, DC

Judy Lewis, Chair CORE Group Board of Directors, moderated a concurrent session at the 5th Consortium of Universities in Global Health (CUGH) Conference on Models of University-NGO partnerships to improve global health.

The panel presented effective approaches to university-NGO collaboration and made recommendations for new partnerships. Post MDG Global Health requires increasing local capacity within countries to eliminate preventable maternal and child deaths. International nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) and local NGOs have considerable experience in all aspects of community health programming. Mobilizing civil society to advocate for community health and improve accountability is an important post-MDG initiative. NGOs can provide the local resources to make this happen. Four models were presented: CORE Group, Global Health Education Training and Service (GHETS), Health Alliance International (HAI), and Haitian Health Foundation (HHF)/University of Connecticut (UCONN). Presentations will be available soon at www.cugh.org.

View Presentations, Videos & Conference Report

The CORE Group Spring 2014 Global Health Practitioner Conference was held in Silver Spring, Maryland at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel from May 5th - 9th with the theme of "Health for All Starts in the Community.

The Conference brought together representatives of CORE Group Member and Associate Organizations and other community-focused global health practitioners, policy makers, researchers, private sector partners and donors to share specific tools and strategies to accelerate progress toward universal health coverage with a focus on partnership, equity, community health, and civil society engagement.

The Spring Conference drew 309 participants from 105 organizations and 19 countries (Benin, Burundi, Cambodia, Canada, DRC, France, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Ireland, Kenya, Netherlands, Pakistan, Peru, Sierra Leone, Switzerland, Tanzania, UK, US).

Overall the conference offered 2 pre-conference sessions (iCCM and Essential Nutrition Actions), 2 co-located events (mHealth and iCCM), 5 plenary sessions, 24 concurrent sessions, 10 lunch roundtable sessions, 8 working group planning sessions, and 17 new info circuit tables. Of the total number of attendees, 126 presented or facilitated during one or more of these sessions.

Read below for brief summaries of the keynote and plenary sessions.

------------------------------------------------------------

Keynote Address | Universal Health Coverage: Lessons from the PAHO Region

Dr. Carrisa F. Etienne, Director, Pan American Health Organziation (PAHO)

Dr. Etienne delivered a thought-provoking address, reminding participants that "Health for All is still a valid goal" and that any efforts to achieve it start in the communities. She reinforced that civil society has a critical role to play to reach universal health coverage. Dr. Etienne highlighted the components of UHC: access to all; comprehensive health care services (preventive and curative); people-centered services; protecting people from financial catastrophe; based on human rights and equity; communities at the center; and linkages to social determinants of health. She also clearly stated what UHC is not: a minimum package of health services; solely health system financing; and privatization of the health sector.

------------------------------------------------------------

Inspiration Shop Plenary

Stacey Young, USAID

Lenette Golding, CARE

Dr. Young emphasized the foundational role of organizational learning and how we can continually improve what we are doing. She shared what USAID is doing to promote internal learning through its Collaborating, Learning and Adapting initiative.

In the second part, speakers reflected on their experiences and experiments in igniting creativity in the workplace.

Each panelist illustrated through pictures, short videos, quotations, sounds, and other media what inspires their

own and others' creativity.

------------------------------------------------------------

Strengthening Community Health Systems Plenary

Bonnie Keith, Advancing Partners and Communities

Henry Perry, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Ms. Keith presented the Community Health Systems Catalog, a new resource produced by the APC project. The catalog is a first-of-its-kind interactive reference tool on country community health systems. She encouraged people to explore the types of information available and to contribute to keeping it up-to-date using the website's feedback form.

Dr. Henry Perry presented an overview and synthesis of the evidence regarding the effectiveness of community-based primary health care in improving maternal, neonatal, and child health as well as an overview and synthesis of recently published literature concerning community-based approaches for RMNCH programming.

------------------------------------------------------------

Future Directions Plenary

Elizabeth Fox, USAID

Marie McLeod, Peace Corps

Sam Worthington, InterAction

Three presenters shared their organizational perspectives on the global development paradigm shift that is taking place within the U.S. and the world:

Elizabeth Fox shared USAID's goals of "Ending Preventable Child and Maternal Deaths" and an "HIV-free generation", both of which will require partnerships with NGOs, FBOs, and CBOs; a focus on gender and women's empowerment; and deeper understanding and use of social and behavior change strategies.
Marie McLeod described Peace Corp's 8,000 volunteers in 70 countries, mostly in health and HIV programs, and the third year PCV program that can place PCVs for free in NGO programs.
Sam Worthington described the changing development landscape of greater connectivity through technology; greater capacity of the global south; and the change in development resources (currently 90% of aid is private and only 10% of aid comes from Official Development Assistance). He emphasized the enormous misconceptions around development and challenged us to ignite a foreign assistance breakthrough grounded in evidence.

------------------------------------------------------------

Engaging Civil Society Plenary

Judith Omondi-Anyona, CRS

Roma Solomon, CORE Group Polio Project

The final plenary session on Friday addressed efforts of Engaging Civil Society to reach global health goals. The
presenters sought to answer: What is Civil Society? What are Civil Society and Government expectations from each other? Why should Civil Society be engaged? And how can we work better with Civil Society? The session also gave a global overview of successes in working with civil society drawing on what has been learned from Immunization (GAVI), and specific successes in harnessing this potential in the CORE Group Polio Project in India.

The session emphasized and demonstrated the roles and contributions of civil society organizations and how
they can help to support accountability, transparency, and sustainability.

Watch Recent Webinars

NACS: A User's Guide (2/12/14)

Quantification for Community Case Management (CCM) (2/26/14)

Leveraging Science to Strengthen the Foundations of Lifelong Learning, Behavior and Health through Innovations in Policy and Practice (4/2/14)

Images Save Lives: Improving Health Communications and Messaging Through Images (5/21/2014)

Social Capital and Maternal and Child Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Evidence from India (6/30/2014)

Make the Most of Your Membership

and the Community Health Network!

As a CORE Group Member or Associate, you and your colleagues have a variety of benefits at your fingertips. Please help us spread the power of learning and sharing with your organization by getting your colleagues involved and completing the following checklist for 2014:

Join CORE Group on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter for the latest Community Health updates and event announcements.
Invite your colleagues to sign up for Working Group listservs, Interest Group listservs, the CG Community listserv, or the e-newlsetter.
Plan a webinar to share an important topic with the Community Health Network. CORE Group provides logistical, promotional, and technical support.

Help CORE Group Advance Community Health Worldwide

Donate now to contribute to CORE Group's mission of advancing community health worldwide.

CORE Group is a proud member of the Combined Federal Campaign: CFC # 81108

DBA: Health for underserved women, children and communities worldwide.

ABOUT CORE GROUP: CORE Group fosters collaborative action and learning to improve and expand community-focused public health practices. Established in 1997 in Washington, DC, CORE Group is an independent 501(c)3 organization, and home to the Community Health Network, which brings together CORE Group member organizations, scholars, advocates, and donors to support the health of underserved mothers, children, and communities around the world.

Visit us at www.coregroup.org.
For inquiries, contact us at contact@coregroupdc.org