Title: Strategic Planning Process Discussions to Continue at the 2003 Annual Meeting in San Francisco
Author:
Section/SPIG: Occupational Health and Safety
Issue Date:
The Occupational Health and Safety Section has been engaged in annual strategic planning discussions through its business meetings at the past two APHA annual meetings. Section Chair Rosie Sokas, along with Chair-Elect Michael Silverstein, Action Board Representative Craig Slatin, and Resolutions and Policy Committee member Denny Dobbin have decided to continue these discussions at this year’s business meetings. The meeting schedule will not permit an extended period for the planning discussion, but one goal of a shorter discussion will be to establish a planning committee that will organize a more extensive discussion for the 2004 APHA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.
History of the Planning Process
At the 2000 APHA Annual Meeting in Boston, the OHS Section had several discussions about using the 2001 Annual Meeting in Atlanta to begin a discussion about longer-term planning for our section. The discussions ranged from the developing of a long-range plan to developing strategies for organizing for progressive action both within APHA as well as through the Association’s activities. The 2001 business meetings were extended for these discussions.
The OHS leadership agreed to the following reasons to pursue longer-term planning:
• We seek to guide the OHS Section to assume a progressive role within APHA.
• We seek to develop a “map” of actions needed in order to make that happen.
• A plan will help us to gauge, annually, our progress.
• Our interests in doing this coincides with a planning directive from APHA.
Our goals and objectives
We are establishing action guidelines and direction for the next five years. This is not meant to restrict leadership autonomy, but rather to provide for continuity of effort over the time period. This is similar to what the Environment Section has done.
Planning in this way helps us to think about how we can best use our leadership resources. For instance, we have not provided much direction for Section Councilors. This process could be used to better establish their roles and tasks. Our intent in this process is to strengthen our impact in setting policies, both within APHA and in the area of workers’ health. The consensus of the planning group was that the planning process should result in establishing a workplan for the section and its leadership teams as they change annually.
Prior discussions
The minutes of the 2001 and 2002 planning discussions are posted on the Section’s web site, <http://staff.washington.edu/oshalert/index.htm>.
At the 2002 meeting, we acknowledged that OHS Section members are very active outside of the section, and therefore have limited time to address Section issues outside of the Annual Meeting. Although we did set some planning goals for 2003, little action was taken. The formation of a planning committee at this year’s meeting should help us to move forward with this process.
Announcements about the schedule for the planning discussion at this year’s business meetings will be posted on the section’s listserve. If you are interested in participating in this discussion, please check your e-mail and come to the meetings. These meetings are for all interested Section members, and not only Section leadership. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to come.
To subscribe to the OHS/APHA listserv: Go to the APHA Section Web page at <www.apha.org/sections>; click on "join online discussion groups." Your user name is "occhlth" and your password is "rules". You will see a page that explains how to sign on to the listserv. The e-mail address to use for our listserve is <occ-hlth-l@liststar.apha.org> (that is a lowercase letter "L", not the number 1).