National MCH Workforce Development Center

Customized workforce development for Title V agencies tackling health transformation challenges

Title V Teams Gather in North Carolina to Build Workforce Capacity

On February 9-12, we hosted our largest-ever Learning Institute in Chapel Hill, North Carolina! This year’s four-day learning event brought together 46 participants from Title V teams who are working to improve public health systems for mothers, children, and their families across the United States.

Participants, coaches, and Center experts at the 2026 Learning Institute.

Each Title V team participated in skill-building workshops and worked with an experienced coach to apply their new or improved skills to the specific MCH challenge they’ve selected as their team’s focus.

The Learning Institute is a key milestone in our 10-month Learning Journey program, which supports teams in tackling complex challenges while simultaneously developing their workforce capacity.

Participants, coaches, and Center experts at the 2026 Learning Institute

This year’s teams are building workforce skills while navigating the following challenges:

  • Creating a strategic plan to reduce maternal syphilis and syphilis transmission
  • Strengthening and/or aligning programs and services for children and youth with special healthcare needs (four teams)
  • Developing a training and support center to strengthen the pediatric medical home model
  • Creating a strategic plan to prevent bullying among adolescents
  • Creating a strategic plan to align efforts to promote adolescent health
  • Integrating engagement with individuals and communities across all Title V population domains
  • Strengthening internal alignment and infrastructure for Title V activities
  • Operationalizing their state’s 2026-2030 Title V State Action Plan

To support teams in tackling their current challenge, and to prepare them for future challenges, the Learning Institute (and the broader Learning Journey) emphasize skill development in four key areas:

  • Engagement with family leaders and community partners
  • Change management and adaptive leadership
  • Evidence-based decision-making and applied implementation
  • Systems strengthening
Steve Orton, PhD, one of the Center’s experts in change management and adaptive leadership, facilitates a session on how a “mutual learning approach” can help teams work together more effectively.
Members of the Kentucky Title V team discussing Learning Institute session content.
Title V team members sharing their System Support Maps, a tool that helps each participant identify their roles, responsibilities, and the resources they need to be an effective team member.

Since the Learning Institute, the teams in the Learning Journey have continued to make progress on their challenges with support from their coaches and other Center experts.

Currently, each team is planning an in-state consultation, during which our experts will work with the team and any key partners to build additional skills. Together with their coaches, each team has identified relevant skills that will help them succeed in the next phase of their work and continue to build their Title V program’s workforce capacity.

We look forward to continuing to support these teams and their ongoing work to improve health systems for mothers, children, and families!