Locally Driven Collaborative Projects (LDCP)

The locally driven collaborative projects (LDCP) stream was launched in April 2011 to support health units to meet the Foundational Standard of the Ontario Public Health Standards (OPHS). This annual funding cycle enables health units to work together on research and program evaluation projects that explore a topic, intervention or program related to a critical public health issue. Through a series of facilitated workshops, health unit staff, along with community organizations and public health researchers, identify and prioritize topics, and develop project proposals. This non-competitive process encourages health units to take a leadership role while developing partnerships to build local research and evaluation capacity.

The locally driven collaborative projects stream of the new program model (SRKE) will run on an annual cycle and continue to provide the following core services:

• Project Funding
• Collaboration Opportunities
• Collaboration Facilitation
• Research Facilitation

A diagram highlighting the vision, key goals, and collaboration partners appears below.

In fall 2011, six locally driven collaborative project teams received up to $100,000 each through the 2011 funding cycle to implement their projects (for more information on these projects, please see 2011 Locally Driven Collaborative Projects Cycle below). Seven LDCP teams are currently in the process of developing proposals to submit to PHO by July 13, 2012 (for more information on the 2012 projects, see 2012 Locally Driven Collaborative Projects Cycle below).

Learn More
For more information about the locally driven collaborative projects and the new program, the paper A New Program Model for Supporting Applied Research and Program Evaluation, Education and Professional Development, and Knowledge Exchange in Public Health, is available online. To learn more about the locally driven collaborative projects or to get involved in next year’s process, contact us at ldcp@oahpp.ca.

 2012 Locally Driven Collaborative Projects Cycle
On Friday, January 27, 2012, Public Health Ontario (PHO) launched the 2012 cycle of the Locally Driven Collaborative Projects (LDCP). PHO hosted a one-hour webinar to provide an overview of the 2012 LDCP, which outlined (a) the research and evaluation topic priority setting process; (b) program goals and timelines; and (c) details about upcoming collaborative team workshops. For more information about the research and evaluation topic priority setting process, please see our LDCP Workshops page.

Important dates for the 2012 LDCP process

Registration Now Open for Workshop 3

Registration is now open for the third and final workshop for the 2012 Locally Driven Collaborative Projects (LDCP). Workshop
3: Developing Ideas, Designing Projects, will be held on May 31st, 2012 at the Delta Chelsea Hotel in downtown Toronto.

Workshop 3 will be an opportunity for participants to:

• Work in collaborative teams to continue developing proposals
• Discuss potential study design options, including methods for conducting data collection and analysis
• Begin outlining a Knowledge Exchange plan

Registration will be open from April 19th, 2012 to May 25th, 2012. Workshops are only open to participants who complete a Collaborative Team Interest Form with their LDCP Team.

For more information about the collaborative workshops, visit the LDCP Workshops page or email LDCP@oahpp.ca

Three facilitated collaboration workshops were held to support the development of the 2011 locally driven collaborative projects. These workshops provided health units, researchers and other community partners with the opportunity to come together face-to-face to generate and prioritize topics for the collaborative projects. Moreover, these workshops were an important venue for knowledge exchange and partnership development for Ontario public health professionals.

The first workshop, Collaborating to Advance Public Health, took place on April 5, 2011. Representatives from 31 health units (including 44 health unit staff) and 10 staff from universities, ministries and community partners participated in this inaugural event. A brief recap and a detailed report of the workshop including the appendices of the report are available.

The second collaboration workshop, Moving From Possibilities to Projects, was held on June 14, 2011. During this workshop, 69 representatives (registered in 6 subject groups) were asked to consider three key criteria as they came to a consensus on which projects to develop into project proposals:

• Interest — alignment with the priorities and direction of health units and the public health system
• Impact — the ability to generate knowledge and influence change in the public health system
• Balance — address the priorities of health units from different regions and of various sizes, meeting the demand (majority) and needs (minority)

At the end of workshop 2, each group had selected three priority topics to develop into project proposals.

| The final workshop, Developing the Project Proposal, allowed project team members to begin working on their project protocols. The goal of the workshop was for teams to develop a solid research question and objective statements, and develop an action plan for completing proposals over the summer months. Sixty-four individuals attended the workshop and were provided with tools and resources to build capacity for proposal development. A research facilitator trained in study design, research methods and proposal development was on-site and worked with teams over the summer to develop proposals.