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Office of Healthy Opportunities

The Office of Healthy Opportunities was formed in 2018 to work with communities served by Indiana FSSA to integrate social drivers of health—including racial and social equity—into agency programs and services.

Mission

To identify and alleviate social risk factors to improve Hoosiers’ health and wellbeing.

Healthy Opportunities logo

Our work

Our work centers on four focus areas: community engagement, program and policy design, workforce development, and accountability and evidence.

  • Community engagement

    Purpose: to create a more effective and meaningful process for integrating community and constituent experiences.

    Objectives :

    • Increase FSSA's participation in community forums across Indiana
    • Streamline processes for engaging constituents in agency planning
    • Build and communicate strategy around constituent experiences
    • Increase partnerships with community-based organizations
  • Program and policy design

    Purpose: to ensure programs are developed and modified to support the needs of FSSA constituents, especially those facing multiple barriers.
    Objectives:

    • Improve knowledge of FSSA programs and information about key service populations
    • Increase ability of program staff to identify and address gaps in service provision
    • Better communicate unmet needs to stakeholders continuously and during the legislative session
    • Address state-level policy barriers to service provision and wellbeing for FSSA constituents
  • Workforce development

    Purpose: to ensure agency staff understand the range of barriers and needs of FSSA constituents; how to address those needs; and to attract and retain staff who have lived expertise.

    Objectives:

    • Improve retention and recruitment of diverse staff members who represent service population
    • Increase staff knowledge about concepts of social risk factors among FSSA staff
    • Increase staff knowledge about high-risk populations
    • Support transparency for complaints and employee experiences
    • Reduce staff perceptions of division-level silos across FSSA
  • Accountability and evidence

    Purpose: to support creation, assessment, and progress toward goals that reduce barriers for FSSA constituents and staff.

    Objectives:

    • Understand trends in employee perceptions about equity and social needs
    • Communicate best practices for effective data management and collection for FSSA constituents
    • Provide continual feedback about effectiveness of equitable practices throughout FSSA
    • Understand opportunities for improvement in leadership, management, and program effectiveness related to health equity

The office has led several projects that reflect our aim, including:

Our team

OHO is a multidisciplinary team with expertise in advocacy, medicine, program design, public health, law and policy, research, and quality improvement. Our staff manage agency ADA compliance while informing barrier reduction strategies across FSSA divisions. Staff also seek feedback from community members, partner organizations, and FSSA programs to inform efforts related to social determinants of health across the agency. Our research and evaluation efforts are also informed by our partnership with WISE Indiana.

Kory Carey, Ph.D.
Chief Health Equity and ADA Officer

In addition to her duties as Chief Health Equity and ADA Officer, Dr. Carey serves as director of FSSA’s Office of Healthy Opportunities. Dr. Carey provides leadership in the evaluation of policy decisions that affect race equity to build metrics for agency accountability while ensuring agency adherence to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Her work aims to address social determinants of health for Hoosiers and designing and implementing socially equitable policies and programs across the agency.

Dawn Sanford
Director of Barrier Reduction

Dawn leads agency-wide strategy related to social determinants of health within FSSA programs by working with internal staff, other state agencies, and external partners. Dawn also supports community engagement and outreach efforts to identify community needs and opportunities for policy and programmatic change across FSSA divisions. She also assesses and informs strategies about FSSA staff training needs related to equity, cultural competency, social determinants of health and health equity.

Megan Lisch, MPH
Health Equity Policy Analyst

Megan works within FSSA’s Office of Healthy Opportunities to assess division-level policies and programs for equitable processes and constituent and staff experiences. She engages agency partners, FSSA divisions, subject matter experts and external stakeholders to inform ongoing agency strategies related to health equity.

Mandy (Bagwell) Blaise, JD
ADA Coordinator

Mandy coordinates FSSA efforts to ensure people with disabilities have equal access to services, programs and activities provided by state and local government. She also investigates any complaints for qualified individuals with disabilities about services, programs and activities provided by FSSA to ensure agency compliance with state and federal disability laws. requirements.

Karla Camacho-Reyes, MPA
Special Projects Director

Karla provides oversight and project management for high-visibility projects on behalf of FSSA's Chief Health Equity and ADA Officer. She establishes objectives, implementation plans, and dissemination strategies for OHO initiatives. Karla also works across OHO equity teams, FSSA divisions, agency partners and external stakeholders to develop recommendations for FSSA workforce development and community engagment.

Get involved

You can stay in touch with OHO and our projects by reaching out to healthyopportunities@fssa.in.gov for more information or by requesting access to our FSSA Office of Healthy Opportunities SharePoint page.

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