Governance

State-based Project LAUNCH grantees are required to establish young child wellness councils at both the state and local levels. Both tribal and community grantees form similar councils.

Governance in Project LAUNCH

Although membership of the councils varies, they all support the project’s environmental scanning and strategic planning efforts, oversee Project LAUNCH implementation, and participate in infrastructure reform and policy development activities.

The Project LAUNCH Request for Applications (RFA) specifies required membership and activities of both the state and local child wellness councils. (For more information, please see the RFA excerpts shown on this page.) For example, state-level, tribal-level councils require representation from the health, mental health, child welfare, Medicaid, substance abuse prevention, early childhood and state education, the child care accrediting administration, Title V administering agencies, and the office of the governor or chief executive of the state, tribe, or territory. In some states, existing early childhood governance bodies, such as the Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS) committee, serve as the state-level council. Local councils must include representation from similar groups at the community level. Both groups require parent participation.

As Project LAUNCH grantees implement the program, they have adopted practices that strengthen their governance in a number of areas, as shown here.

Membership

• Select members that bring a mixture of partnership and power. Although members of large agencies or organizations bring prestige and can command resources, they are often too busy to participate regularly in the work of the council. By also including committed representatives from lower levels of organizations, councils can ensure an adequate level of active involvement in the group.
• Include more than one family representative. Even confident parents or family members can be intimidated by the experience of participating in a high-level board or council. Providing the parent with a partner can give them the support they need to share their message.
• Select members that reflect the council’s priorities. Members with expertise and experience in the council’s goal areas can inform the discussion and advocate for the council’s decisions with their constituent group. For example, councils that are focusing on integration of mental health into primary care may benefit from representation from the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Meetings

• Use the initial meeting (or the first meeting of each year) to orient members and clarify expectations for the year and council members’ roles. (Feel free to modify the Project LAUNCH orientation PowerPoint presentation on this page for your meeting.)
• Create an outcome-focused agenda for every meeting. Council members are typically busy people who want to invest their time well. By limiting the amount of updates and reporting at meetings and devoting most of the meetings to decision making and discussion, members will feel that their time was well used.
• Establish a yearly work plan, with quarterly goals. Providing council members with a roadmap that includes major milestones (e.g., review environmental scan data; develop or revisit strategic goals, objectives, or work plans;, hear report on service implementation) helps them to gauge the amount of time they will need to carve out for meeting preparation; it can also help busy department heads know when their participation is necessary or when they can send a representative.
• Review progress in meeting goals set on a regular basis to celebrate accomplishments, identify barriers to success and problem-solve new tasks or action steps to address them, and set new goals and timelines as old ones are met.

See the Resources section for books and articles on establishing and maintaining an effective governance structure.