The Community Leadership Institute of Kentucky (CLIK) is a new 3-week leadership development training program scheduled to begin this fall.  It is offered by the UK Center of Excellence in Rural Health (CERH), the Kentucky Office of Rural Health, and the UK CCTS Community Engagement and Research Program. The CLIK is designed to enhance community research and capacity-building competencies in community leaders (e.g., directors, administrators, and other persons who play a key role in using data and decision making). There are 8-10 slots available for the 2014 class.

“The overall goal of the program is to assist community leaders associated with organizations that engage and empower communities to reduce health disparities, leverage funding, and learn how to use data to improve services and programs,” said Dr. Fran Feltner, director of the UK CERH.

Training sessions will be offered during three, all-day classes scheduled about a week apart and will include the proposed topics of grant proposal writing, accessing and mining public data sets, quality improvement and ensuring evidence-based practice, survey development, community health needs, program evaluation and data analysis and budget development and implementation.  The training sessions will be followed by a graduation event in which participants will present projects developed throughout the training sessions.  All events will be in Hazard at the UK CERH.

Each participant’s organization will receive a $1500 grant for their participation in this competitive program and completion of proposed project. Priority will be given to leaders from Appalachian counties in Kentucky (http://www.arc.gov/counties).  In addition, priority will be given to applicants who  propose projects consistent with the UK CCTS Community Engagement and Research Program’s areas of interest including: cancer prevention (e.g., nutrition, physical activity, smoking cessation), reducing obesity and sedentary lifestyle, chronic disease (diabetes, cardiovascular disease) prevention or management and substance abuse prevention and treatment.

The request for applications is expected to be available in early August.

To learn more about CLIK, please visit http://ruralhealth.med.uky.edu/UKCRH-CLIK or contact Beth Bowling, RN, beth.bowling@uky.edu, (606) 439-3557 ext. 83545, or Carol R. White, MPH, crwhit3@email.uky.edu, (859) 218-0588.