Leader Focus Groups

Building Resilience Systems: Health Department Pilot Leaders

Form Approved

OMB Approval No. 0920-1154

Expiration Date: 03/31/2026

Note: Objective of the Focus Group and Confidentiality Statement are included in the FG invitation.

Objective of the Focus Groups: We are conducting focus groups with employees and leaders from health departments implementing organizational interventions related to building resilience. The objective of these focus groups is to gain a better understanding of your experiences with the intervention(s). We are also looking to learn about intervention(s) that have been effective or challenges experienced in implementing solutions. These focus groups will provide important insight into specific issues of concern to you, as well as help determine which interventions can enhance health department workforce resilience and how they should be implemented.

Confidentiality Statement: We value your contribution to this focus group, and we commit to your confidentiality. All data collected from this focus group will be combined with data from other focus groups and interviews. Each comment reported will be confidential. That is, personal identifying information will be removed from the individual comments before they are shared with the CDC project team. All personal identifying information will not be linked to specific responses, but we will submit a separate list of participants to CDC for final reporting purposes. We also ask that each participant respects the confidentiality of other participants and not disclose any information shared during the focus group with anyone outside the call.

Start Focus Group Session Here

Introduction: Welcome and thank you for participating in this focus group.

My name is XX from ICF and I will be facilitating our discussion today. XX is also on the call from ICF and will be taking notes.

Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to be 60 minutes per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to: CDC/ATSDR Reports Clearance Officer; Paperwork Reduction Project (0920-0527); M.S. D-24; 1600 Clifton Road NE, Atlanta, Ga. 30333.

ICF is an international consulting firm and CDC has hired us to review health department workforce needs related to organization interventions piloted to enhance workplace wellness. This data collection will inform the implementation pilot interventions across the organization to enhance resilience in the health department workforce.

We want to note that for this project, we are focusing on piloted organizational-level interventions that can promote workplace wellness and reduce burnout for employees. [Insert statement about their organization’s intervention(s).]

Finally, you received a confidentiality statement in the invitation for this focus group. As a reminder, we commit to your confidentiality and ask that you respect the confidentiality of other participants as well. So, please do not share anything we discuss today outside of this focus group call.

Feel free to be on-camera or off-camera. Whatever makes you more comfortable today. Additionally, participation in this focus group is completely voluntary. You are free to stop participating at any point and you will not be negatively impacted.

Although we are taking notes, to help us ensure we accurately capture your insights, we would like to record today’s session. This recording will only be used by the research team for notetaking purposes. Does anyone have concerns with us recording this call?

Facilitator start recording in Teams.

Introductions

Well, once again, thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate it. Because we only have a short time together, we would like you each to introduce yourself briefly in the chat.

Please provide what your job role is. <give them time to do so>

Intervention(s)

1. How has your experience with the intervention(s) been? (ask separately for each of the interventions, if more than one)

   1. What is your perception of the intervention implementation process?

   2. To what extent was the intervention implemented as intended?

   3. To what extent was the intervention adopted by health department staff?

2. What are factors that influenced how well the intervention(s) is implemented?

   1. In what ways were the intervention(s) implemented successfully?

   2. In what ways were there challenges in the implementation of the intervention(s)?

   3. What changes would you make if you were to implement this intervention again to either make the implementation more smooth or increase employee use of the intervention?

3. How well do you think that this intervention was received by staff in your department? What did people say about it and did they participate?

   1. What did participation look like in your office for this intervention?

   2. If staff did not participate, why do you think that was?

4. [If multiple interventions adopted] Have you seen any difference in the interventions offered or the effect of interventions?

5. If this is an ongoing intervention, do you plan to continue offering it to your staff? Or if the intervention implementation is complete, would you offer it again, either in the future or if given the chance again?

Stress

6. Do you believe the intervention(s) has impacted your levels of stress at work? If so, in what way?

   1. How do you see the stress levels of your staff impacted since the implementation of this intervention?

Resilience

7. From the research literature, we understand that burnout is impacting health department employees. Burnout includes feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one job, and reduced feelings of competence and achievement. Research also suggests that cultivating resilience may help prevent or reverse burnout. What are some ways the intervention(s) has promoted or impeded resilience among health department staff?

1. What aspects of the intervention(s) have made the most impact?

2. Can you provide an example of one way the intervention has impacted the level of burnout among health department staff?

Job Satisfaction and Employee Outcomes

8. How do you see the intervention impacting staff satisfaction

9. How has implementing this intervention impacted your workload as a leader?

   1. Were there specific elements of the intervention that required more time than you expected to implement?

Wrap up

10. If time permits, you can ask: That is all of the questions that we had planned. Is there anything else that you wanted to share that we have not discussed?

Closing and Thank You: Thank you very much for your time and participation in this focus group. Your insights have been very helpful. If you have any thoughts after the call that you would like to share, please feel free to email those to Allison Alexander, who sent the invitation for this call. After completing all of the focus groups, we will consolidate these data with data that we gather from other focus groups and interviews. Combined, these data will be used to evaluate the pilot intervention(s) implementation and success. After our data collection and analysis is completed, we plan to offer a webinar to share the results of this data collection. We will make sure that all participants receive an invitation to this webinar.