SMMHC Strategic Planning Update

July 31, 2024

This summer, the Sacramento Maternal Mental Health Collaborative has been hard at work reviewing our progress, challenges, and opportunities that have transpired over the past 6 years. Despite the challenges posed by Covid-19, we are proud to report that our core membership remains steadfastly dedicated to the mission of the Collaborative.

Mission: The Sacramento Maternal Mental Health Collaborative works to develop and maintain an equitable system of prevention, identification, and treatment services addressing the full spectrum of maternal mental health conditions in Sacramento County.

Starting in 2019, we focused on 5 pillars:

• Health Equity

• Data and resource mapping

• Provider training

• Policy and Advocacy

• Public awareness.

• We have developed Be Mom Aware, our flagship project, focused on maternal mental health equity, provider training, and public awareness. Through this project, we have developed a successful community provider training program and are developing a nine-part comprehensive asynchronous training program for healthcare providers.

• We have developed multiple communication tools and social media presence to increase maternal mental health literacy.

• We have built collaborative relationships with Sacramento County health plan partners, including Anthem Blue Cross, Healthnet, and Molina Healthcare.

• Our integration with Sac Family Connect and Sac Healthy Baby is a testament to the power of collaboration in achieving our shared goals.

Be Mom Aware training significantly increased community provider Awareness, Confidence, and understanding of the impact of Cultural Factors on maternal mental health.

Do you want your organization to receive this critical training? Reach out to Jessica Walker at info@bemomaware.com.

Looking to the Future…

In June, we met in person at One Community Health for our second Strategic Planning Meeting.

We used the Nominal Group Technique to refine the Collaborative's strategic plan for the next 3-5 years.

This four-part process started with generating ideas on the prompt "What maternal mental health outcomes can the SMMHC impact the most in the next 3-5 years?" Participants spent approximately 5 minutes generating ideas. We then completed a round-robin recording of the ideas from the group on poster paper. In total, 31 unique ideas were generated. We then discussed these ideas, including cross-overs between ideas and further explanations of the meaning behind the ideas. Finally, participants were asked to rank their top 5 ideas individually and anonymously on paper. Here is what the data showed:

Results of June Strategic Planning Session #2.

We’re not done yet.

At today’s collaborative meeting, hosted by Healthnet, we drilled down our goals and objectives even further. At our next meeting on August 28th, we will present these results and reach a consensus on our work for the next 3-5 years.

It’s not too late to participate!

Our next Collaborative meeting is Wednesday, August 28, at the Sacramento County Office at 7001-A East Parkway, Sacramento, CA 95823.