Current Initiatives
Charles River Public Health District Initiatives
As of March 2025
Environmental Health Working Group
Started in September 2024, the CRPHD's Environmental Health Working Group has staff from all 4 towns participating in a monthly meeting to discuss environmental health topics. The goal of this Working Group is to encourage collaboration, provide insight & advice across departments, and standardize basic environmental health practices across the Shared Service arrangement.
Improving Local Public Health Performance Standards
In the Fall of 2022, municipalities participating in the MA Public Health Excellence Shared Services Grant Program completed the Baseline Capacity Assessment. The MA DPH Office of Local and Regional Health analyzed the self-reported data to identify to what degree the SSAs were meeting the minimum performance standards according to statutory requirements. The Capacity Assessment performance standards are a minimum baseline for local public health departments. These standards will continue to evolve over time with the goal of aligning closely with the Foundational Public Health Services, a nationally recognized minimum set of skills, programs, and activities a health department must have to function well.
Charles River Public Health District self-reported results showed that the four communities were meeting 85% of the performance standards. The state average among all fifty-one SSA's was 78% with results ranging from 46% to 87%.
In Fiscal Year 2025, each community will complete a Self-Assessment to compare capacity from the 2022 Assessment with current capacity. Based on these results, CRPHD staff will assist towns in developing plans to achieve the remaining minimum performance standards that are not being met. Additionally, the collaborative will begin assessing capacity to deliver the Foundational Public Health Services.
Assessing Foundational Public Health Services (FPHS)
As part of the State Action for Public Health Excellence (SAPHE) Program, the Department of Public Health's Office of Local and Regional Health (OLRH) is adopting the FPHS framework for Massachusetts' local public health system. SAPHE 2.0, which was signed into law in November 2024, continues this work.
The current Performance Standards for Local Public Health (as described in the section above) are based on Massachusetts laws and regulations. The FPHS go a step further and describe the core elements of public health services that should be provided to a community. The next version of the Performance Standards will include the FPHS Framework.
The FPHS Framework sets a minimum level of services that should be available in every community but lets each community choose how to provide these services. Local public health departments are responsible for making sure these services are available directly or through other groups. This approach allows local public health to work with other community groups to address local issues and changing needs.
In Fiscal Year 2025, the Charles River Public Health District staff will work with each community in conjunction with BME Strategies to conduct several assessments of the capacity for providing FPHS, which will then be reported back to OLRH. Based on feedback from these assessments, the CRPHD will focus on how to develop best practices in offering FPHS in each community.