This week is National Public Health Week, in which we celebrate the work we are doing as public health professionals to better the health and well-being of individuals and communities around the country. And today’s theme, Building Broader Connections, reminds us that we can’t do it alone.

In one of our newest projects entitled Protecting Children While Parents Work, a collaboration with the National Children’s Center for Rural Agricultural Health and Safety, our end goal is to assure that children are kept safe while their farmworker parents are working. All stakeholders involved can agree to this goal.

In this first year of the project, “we are talking with child care providers, agricultural workers who are also parents, and industry leaders, and we’re trying to find common ground so that farmworkers can have better access to care for their children,” while they work, says Juliana Simmons, MSPH, CHES, MCN’s Environmental and Occupational Health Program Manager. By the end of the project we hope to promote recommended childcare models based on the input of all the stakeholders and lay the groundwork for regional coalition building to facilitate collaboration.

Building broader connections is an essential step to ensuring communities are strong, integrated, and ready to act toward a common health cause. Through innovative programs like Protecting Children While Parents Work, we can make a big difference in the health of farmworker families across the country by determining where we can collaborate toward similar goals.

Learn more about our Environmental and Occupational Health initiatives here.