ABOUT US

The ISU Community Connections for Public Health (CCPH) group is an open network designed to foster and build and support partnerships focused on broad health and human service needs (both locally and across the state). Service-learning is the key programming strategy in the ISU CCPH since it provides mutual benefits to both students and community partners.

  • Students benefit from the opportunities to apply their knowledge and skill in real-world applications and to gain professional experience.
  • Community partners, in turn, benefit from the expertise and passion of students working through their organizations.

The CCPH group is linked to the community engagement hub for the ISU Translational Research Network (U-TuRN). Through the CCPH model, we are working to build partnerships across campus and in the community to help facilitate campus/community connections. Community organizations and agencies value connections with students and campus programming but often find it hard to connect through the large campus network. Similarly, students and faculty value opportunities to work with community agencies to apply for their work but it can be challenging to make the needed connections or to sustain partnerships over time. Thus, CCPH operates as a broker and connecting hub with GivePulse as one of our primary tools. Key strategic goals for CCPH Organizations are to:

  • Leverage the knowledge, wisdom, and experience in communities and in academic institutions to solve pressing health, social, environmental, and economic challenges.
  • Ensure that community-driven social change is central to the work of community-academic partnerships.
  • Build the capacity of communities and academic institutions to engage each other in partnerships that balance power, share resources, and work towards systems change.

Thus, the CCPH hub is designed to provide a way to link the community and campus together for mutual benefit. Students and faculty benefit from the chance to connect with and serve the community while the community benefits from the support and assistance of motivated and engaged students and faculty. If you are interested in joining the cause and helping us to build this vision please contact us at ccph@iastate.edu or through our U-TuRN group (uturn@iastate.edu). Direct inquiries can also be made to Dr. Greg Welk, the faculty coordinator of CCPH and the director of U-TuRN (gwelk@iastate.edu). 

CCPH Community Connections for Public Health