DIP-IN Near West, Near Northwest, and Northeast Steering Committees continue to meet monthly as individual committees, but twice per year we come together for All Steering Committee meetings.
The structure of these meetings involves a delicious and healthier meal, networking and catching up with familiar faces, and sharing out information on topics such as newly supported Community Health Improvement Projects (CHIPs) or project data.
The theme of our spring 2025 meeting was “DIP-IN at Home, in the U.S., and Worldwide," in which we focused on how DIP-IN has touched and even made an impact in programs and places outside of the hyper-local work going on in the DIP-IN communities every day.
At a local level, while we know community health workers are nothing new, we highlighted how other CHW programs are learning from DIP-IN and how DIP-IN is pairing with other teams to network with and contribute to training the CHW workforce.
On a national level, steering committee members were able to highlight the Neighborhoods USA (NUSA) Conference that will have just occurred by the release of this update. This is the second time DIP-IN residents have attended NUSA and this is a venue in which they are able to share with neighborhoods all around the country what DIP-IN is and how it works in their communities.
Finally, one of the things we shared from a worldwide perspective is that DIP-IN has previously met with a neighborhood-based diabetes program in the Netherlands to discuss their program evaluation. They pointed out that DIP-IN was one of the few projects they found around the world that was similar in design.
While these are just a few of the examples that were highlighted, we loved sharing with our residents the impact that a program like DIP-IN is having beyond our communities because it highlights the innovative and important work they are doing.
We want to thank the Northeast Steering Committee and Pastor Brian Shobe for hosting us at Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in the Northeast community. We also want to thank Northeast-based, A Taste of Home Catering, for providing food at the meeting. And finally, thank you to all our attendees who continue to show up for DIP-IN.
