The Kit Carson County Diabetes Prevention and Education Program (KCC) provides diabetes education to a frontier community in eastern Colorado. Since 2007, over 400 individuals have received education and case management services. The program is housed in a local public health agency and, to date, all program expenses have been supported entirely by county tax dollars.
In May 2013, agency staff decided to use the Program Sustainability Assessment Tool to better understand KCC’s sustainability capacity. According to program manager Dawn J., “While we were fully aware that certain weaknesses existed, having a research-based tool that took personal ‘ownership’ of the program out of the picture allowed us to look at our situation without bias…The tool was extremely user friendly.”
Results from the Sustainability Assessment showed the need for (1) more community promotion and (2) additional sources of funding that would make the program sustainable. KCC plans to share this information with members of their Community Advisory Board as they discuss next steps for addressing their program’s 3 year sustainability plan. Based on their sustainability results, KCC is looking into funding an additional individual to become a Certified Diabetes Educator and finding sources of funding outside of county tax dollars to pay for the program.