Enabling Large Scale Change

DRPH 251 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

The Enabling Change program within the DrPH degree program is based on the belief that effective, applied, public health practitioners must be able to enable positive change within themselves, amongst their teams, inside their organizations, and across systems. For those preparing to work at scale, what applied skills, learning trajectories, frameworks, and mindsets are needed to identify synergies, foster multi-party collaborations, and coordinate work within an organization, across systems, and across sectors? How do individual actors orient themselves to this work, especially where the scale of the endeavor requires complex partnerships among entities who may evaluate success in different ways and where work typically unfolds over a long time (possibly exceeding an individual career or even life span)?
This course enables DrPH students to engage with senior leaders who have led significant large-scale efforts. Each session will focus on a tripartite model of exploring a significant, complex problem (institutional transformation or achieving health equity), relevant management and performance tools (i.e. strategic planning and implementation, budget and regulatory processes, or engaging multi-stakeholder coalitions), and the leader’s reflections on operating wisely (and learning from mistakes) in the context of “wicked problems.” The course will also allow DrPH students to draw lessons from their own leadership engagements during the January Field Immersion. Finally, students will be introduced to a portfolio of approaches that take into account the intersection of policy and politics. For example, students will learn how to prepare for and engage in a simulated press conference and workshop personal branding and digital communications strategies.

Course Objectives
At the end of this course, students will be able to:

• Refine personal leadership agendas and identify skill areas to shape their progression in the DrPH program, including their summer Field Immersion experiences.
• Integrate the synergistic efforts of the public, professionals, policymakers, and other key constituents in driving large-scale change in health issues, utilizing scientific evidence, stakeholder input, public opinion data, and other key sources of information. 
• Identify pathways by which individuals drive large-scale change efforts within organizations, across coalitions of organizations, and across sectors. 
• Apply strategies towards consensus/resolution in multi-stakeholder settings and alternatives where agreement currently cannot be fostered.

No auditing.