CHHS Strategic Planning Retreat
It wasn’t creating a college plan aligned with the University Beach 2030 strategic priorities that presented challenges for the very large and complex College of Health and Human Services (CHHS). Instead, the challenge was creating a responsive planning mechanism that was well-understood by the college and served to galvanize its efforts. As a result, Dean Monica Lounsbery proposed an off-site retreat during the summer of 2022 for faculty and staff leaders that represented the infrastructure of CHHS including departments, schools, centers, committees, and shared governance. During a two-day retreat in Temecula, college leaders convened to imagine the future of CHHS and develop annual strategic goals and specific action plans that representative infrastructure of the college would pursue. The goal was to have a realistic, yet forward thinking plan that could be revisited throughout the academic year.
CHHS realized that for annual goals around DEI, there was a need for college-wide coordination and launched a faculty fellowship to support this recognized need. Later, the college realized that coordination was needed to support the entire plan. Prior to initiating the CHHS Beach 2030 Faculty Fellow, it was difficult to track progress and understand how to connect efforts to optimize our work together more fully as a college. “We were often engaging in similar initiatives with other departments and didn’t even know it”, recalls Melissa Dyo, Beach 2030 Faculty Fellow for CHHS.
The CHHS planning process includes planned actions in fall with a check-in on progress at the start of spring to review progress and plan actions for the remainder of the year. A desire to continue the CHHS annual strategic planning model was quickly recognized according to Dyo. The Fall 2022 retreat was essentially a pilot and integral in developing a CHHS strategic planning model. There is a strong sense that the broad representation of the college that participates in this planning model has led to a greater culture of cohesion. “Our Dean uses the metaphor of rowing in the same direction and the retreat was a place where that started to become a reality,” says Dyo.
Many CHHS initiatives are underway and are aligned with annual goals to support college strategic priorities. For example, a mental health training initiative for faculty and a month-long wellness campaign to promote healthy living launched this year, supporting the college’s mission to define, support and assess student, faculty and staff success.
Additionally, a recent collaboration between CHHS’ School of Social Work and the Long Beach Unified School District, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach and Mental Health America Los Angeles was born out of efforts to broaden community engagement and advance partnerships — another strategic priority identified by the college, said Jonathan Murrietta, communications specialist for CHHS. The joint effort aims to focus on youth mental health, while also creating meaningful field internship placements for students in the School of Social Work program. Opportunities like this are essential for preparing students to meet the needs of the community and for degree completion.
When the CHHS team returns to Temecula this summer, they will spend time evaluating AY 22-23 actions and progress in relation to achievement of goals and will work as a team to determine AY 23-24 goals and fall actions to support these goals. “I’m very proud of the model we are using to actualize our strategic plan and I’m even more proud of the work CHHS is accomplishing together with our students, alumni and the communities we serve,” said Dean Monica Lounsbery.
