Photos by Rob Lunn Class of 2008

Overview

The Northeast Regional Public Health Leadership Institute (NEPHLI) is a year-long experiential program that builds and improves the leadership skills of current and future public health practitioners.

NEPHLI supports emerging leaders from state and local public health departments and allied public and private organizations to broaden their vision of public health policy, practice and collaboration and foster improved decision making within their organizations.

NEPHLI provides participating Scholars with opportunities to gain practical experience from experts in a variety of fields. Topics include: leadership development , measuring and improving public health performance, developing collaborative relationships and partnerships, team building, group problem solving, responding to the needs for cultural diversity and competence, and addressing the training needs of the public health workforce. Scholars also learn to evaluate their own potential for leadership and their leadership styles. Curricula are tailored to meet the needs of Scholars and address issues important to their personal growth and to building healthier communities.

NEPHLI Scholars include managers from state and local departments of public health, social services agencies and providers in community-based organizations, including health maintenance and managed care organizations, and academia.

The program consists of three Retreats and ongoing learning through distance learning and networking. The Retreats are held for five days in July, three days in October, and three days in the spring (July and the Spring Retreats are held at the Rensselaerville Institute in Rensselaerville, New York located about 45 minutes from the capital city of Albany. The October Retreat is held at the Whispering Pines Conference Center near Providence, Rhode Island. Both are spacious wooded retreat centers that offer conducive learning environments.

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Mission

The Northeast Regional Public Health Leadership Institute (NEPHLI) brings together state and local health departments, academia, public health associations and organizations committed to improving the skills of leaders in the field of public health. Collectively, this partnership strengthens leadership skills, professional development and promotes healthier communities.

Goals

The goals of the NEPHLI are:

• increase leadership skills and competencies of NEPHLI Scholars,
• promote public health thorough collaborative relationships,
• seek supplemental funding to enhance NEPHLI's viability and sustainability and;
• engage the expertise of the Advisory Committee

Program Structure

The Northeast Regional Public Health Leadership Institute offers an experiential program which broadens the vision of public health practitioners to evaluate and refine leadership skills necessary to perform the Public Health Core Functions and 10 Essential Public Health Services. NEPHLI provides participating Scholars with opportunities to share professional challenges and successes with colleagues from throughout the Northeast. Scholars learn how to build an organizational climate to respond to the needs of culturally-diverse populations. The curricula consist of team building and the application of problem solving, advocacy, coalition building, risk communications and emergency preparedness.Click here to see the 2009 Retreat with faculty and the competencies or here to see the core curriculum.

The faculty comprises experts from public health, management, risk communications, and organizational behavior. The programs are tailored to meet the needs of Scholars and to address the issues important to their organizations and states. Between sessions, Scholars continue to learn through developing scholar projects, networking and case studies. The impact of the Institute is felt long after Scholars complete the formal program. The contacts made through NEPHLI can last for a lifetime.

The cost for the year-long program is approximately $3,000. This includes everything (registration, conference materials, room, board, transfer from airport or Amtrack ) except personal transportation. The first Retreat for the Class of 2010 is scheduled for July 12 - 16, 2010.

NEPHLI is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the NEPHLI Partner States:

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Personal Growth

NEPHLI uses three primary tools to assist Scholars to increase their personal insight as a means toward improving their leadership effectiveness. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) helps Scholars better understand how natural preferences, derived from their personality, influence perceptions, actions and behaviors. The Leadership Practices Inventory. (LPI) is a validated 360-degree assessment that enables Scholars to develop a clear picture of how others in their organizational environment view leadership-related behaviors. The Scholars then receive individualized coaching to determine areas in which they want to develop, establish goals, and begin working towards those goals. More recently, NEPHLI has incorporated the Change Style Indicator (CSI) to assess one’s preferred styles to initiate and deal with change. NEPHLI Scholars have found that these instruments provided valuable insights and enhanced their understanding of how their unique personalities and preferences define the approaches they bring to the many facets of their work. Ultimately, with this newly acquired insight and coaching, the Scholars develop into organizational leaders.

The personal development process is lead by Mark Lipton, Ph.D., Professor of Management and Chair of the Organization Change Management program at the Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, New School University, in New York City. He has been a member of the NEPHLI faculty since 1999. His research and consulting over the past decade have focused exclusively on executive development and leadership. His most recent book, Guiding Growth: How Vision Keeps Companies on Course, was published by Harvard Business School Press in 2003 and is used as a resource by NEPHLI Scholars. Dr. Lipton's work with NEPHLI Scholars includes customized presentations based on his experiences in executive and leadership development as well as one-on-one coaching which all Scholars are encouraged to receive.

The MBTI was developed by Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers. It is a self-reporting questionnaire designed to facilitate individual and organizational development, communication, team building, problem solving and more. Scholars are able to process the information learned from the MBTI and understand its usefulness during NEPHLI's July retreat.

The LPI was developed by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner. It is an instrument through which a select number of observers give confidential and anonymous feedback to the leader (NEPHLI Scholars) on the use of five leadership practices of exemplary leaders: challenging the process, inspiring a shared vison, enabling others to act, modeling the way, and encouraging the heart. The data from the LPI is used to identify leadership strengths and opportunities for improvement and is discussed at the October Retreat. Following this Retreat, Scholars are encouraged to participate in individual coaching session to gain additional insight from the data and to determine the best plan for further development based on their individual goals.

The CSI is a product of Discovery Learning and was developed by W. Christopher Musselwhite, Ed.D. The model measures change and individual preferences for change on a continuum ranging from gradual to incremental to radical and expansive change. The continuum does not address competence or define whether a person’s preference is right from wrong. The process identifies three change preferences: conservers, pragmatists and originators and attests that people are attracted to jobs, professions and organizations based on their change style preferences (Change Style Indicator, Research and Development Report, Discovery Learning, W. Christopher Musselwhite, May 2000).