Public Policy for Health

Public Policy for Health of the Community: The Importance of Community Centers
Laws of the city, state and nation all directly have an impact on the health and wellness of their citizens. Hence, it is crucial to foster policies at all arenas of government to adequately acknowledge the facts that can have a negative impact on the health of a community. This is why public policy and nursing are so important: nurses are consistently on the front lines of patient care and have an intimate knowledge often of the needs and vulnerabilities of a particular community. Public policy is crucial as it can impact some of the biggest sectors of human and community life—from housing, job availability, access to healthy food and the availability of high quality medical support, to the overall cleanliness of the environment lived in. For example, even public policy that appears to have no impact on health can have a strong influence on the health and safety of residents, such as a zoning ordinance that decides which businesses can be located near residential areas (jhsph.edu). Access or lack of access to mass transit can have an enormous impact on the health and safety of residents in local communities. Hence, this paper will focus on an arena of public policy that has a direct impact on community health, which is the needed presence of a city-mandated community centers throughout the region.
This change in public policy that needs to occur can follow the example of the 27 community centers that were instated in Seattle in 2016. The mindset behind the community centers is that they are safe places where people can meet, share fun times, be creative, and offer their children a secure and stimulating place to go after school. While some view the community center as simply a nice luxury on the local level, the connection to mental and physical health is acute: community centers provide children with a place to vent emotions, to be creative, to build skills that will help them stand up to peer pressure. In at-risk communities, such centers can give young people a sense of family and a sense that there’s a place where they can go outside their homes (which are sometimes dysfunctional). In this manner, a community center can be instrumental in thwarting young people from joining gangs or getting pregnant in their teen years.
The exact wording of the bill will be influenced by another state (Texas), which has had success in implementing public policy in support of community centers. The wording would be as follows: Community Centers support essential networks of private and public providers that provide options for individuals using services and tools while meeting their health and safety requirements within our local communities (txcouncil.com). Local government sectors, grassroots community leaders and branches of the business sector work together to mesh and share resources to develop a lasting investment in strong communities (txcouncil.com). The city-wide community centers will be run by local control: “Local officials and locally governed organizations are in the best position to understand and effectively address unique community needs” (txcouncil.com). Local community leaders need to have the power of running the organization as they are more knowledgeable of the wide geographic, economic and cultural factors that exist throughout the region. These factors are so significant to the arena of public health as they have a direct impact in the local health and human service delivery (txcouncil.com). The law that mandates city-wide community centers will have a provision in place which also requires there to be public accountability. “Public health and human services are provided by entities whose performance and resource management is transparent and subject to stringent standards. Involvement of stakeholders at the community level is a vital consideration in best use of limited public resources to meet increasing, changing service demands.” (txcouncil.com). There need to be hand-picked advocates and other community stakeholders that have an official role in observing and assessing the success of public service objectives to accomplish the successful use of the overall taxpayer money allocated to these goals (txcouncil.com).
One of the reasons that community centers are such a crucial aspect of public policy that will help and improve the health of people in a lasting and effective way, is because these entities already have a proven performance. The community centers mandated by law in these areas will be able to capitalize on the already established local networks that are already working to strengthen the communities. In this manner they will be able to improve structures within the community that are already working. The presence of these community centers will be very useful and in some ways drastically improve the quality of life of so many residents of the community: people will be able to have access to services they very desperately need to make their lives better and thwart the necessity of more expensive options like hospitalization and institutional care (txcouncil.com).
The plan for the implementation of the policy development will include lobbying lawmakers who already have ties to the regional areas where the community centers would go. These lawmakers and politicians need to be inundated with calls, emails and visits from community leaders so that they can help champion this legislation. Finding people in law and politics with ties to the communities that need these centers is key in moving this policy forward. The people who will champion for this law and be able to move it forward are the same ones who have connections to these neighborhoods and more intensive understanding of their needs. These are the people who already have careers in politics or law who will have the know-how and professional connections to move this policy forward. Such community leaders turned politicians and lawmakers will understand how community centers are so readily connected to a region that is free from poverty (NYSCAA).
















References
NYSCAA. (2018). NYSCAA Public Policy – NYSCAA. Retrieved from https://nyscommunityaction.org/nyscaa-public-policy/
Seattle.gov. (2016). Community Center Strategic Plan - Parks | seattle.gov. Retrieved from https://www.seattle.gov/parks/about-us/policies-and-plans/community-center-strategic-plan
TxCouncil.com. (n.d.). Public Policy, Community Centers, Public Health | Texas Council. Retrieved from http://txcouncil.com/public-policy/