The Leaders across Borders (LaB) program is an advanced leadership development program designed for public health, health care, and other leaders working to improve the health of communities in the United States and México (U.S.-México) border region.
The program emphasizes personal leadership development as well as the development of collaborative and transborder leadership skills.
What is the Leaders across Borders Program?
The Leaders across Borders program brings together leaders from both countries in the U.S.-México Border Region who are working to improve the health of communities there. Its overarching goal is to strengthen public health and community leadership through skill and network development via advanced leadership training. It is modeled on other successful national and international leadership training programs.
The purpose of Leaders across Borders program is to improve the health of communities and promote health equity in the U.S.-México border region through:
- Strengthening public health preparedness, transborder leadership and diplomacy and health infrastructure in the border region through advanced leadership training
- Enhancing participants’ leadership competencies to deal with complex real world public health concerns that require transborder solutions
- Facilitating the development of a U.S.-México transborder public health leadership network
Program Features
Leaders across Borders empowers participants to achieve individual, organizational, and systems change through a program whose unique features include:
- Three on-site events (for 2010, a two day orientation in March, a three day retreat in April, and a one day closing event in October)
- Distance learning webinars, optional internet based courses
- Binational action-learning team projects. Participants will address complex border health concerns and leadership challenges with their teams through monthly distance team meetings assisted by an action-learning facilitator, and independent work
- Individual 360-degree leadership assessments and the development of personal leadership action plans
- Opportunities for expanded transborder professional networks
- Program events and materials will be delivered in English and Spanish.
Team Projects
 The team project is the cornerstone of the LaB Program. It brings together health leaders from the U.S. and México to work on shared issues and concerns. Using “action learning” principles, the team project provides a structured process for working on real-world complex public health problems with the purposes of improving participants’ leadership skills, fostering lasting professional networks, and improving the public’s health by finding new solutions to old problems.
Participants may apply to the LaB with a ready-formed team and focused team project or be assigned a team following program admission. Teams meet during onsite learning events and conference monthly between retreats. Each team is guided by a team facilitator trained in action-learning and experienced working in the border region.
What Skill Sets Does the Leaders across Borders Program Address?
The LaB curriculum emphasizes the skill sets identified for the new public health leader working in the border and binational setting such as:
- Transborder partnerships, networks and systems
- Addressing health disparities
- Health communication and health literacy
- Health diplomacy and advocacy
- Organizational Change: creating a learning culture within the organization
- Personal development (wellness, self-awareness of personal style, preferences, communication and leadership skills), based on feedback from standardized leadership testing instruments, coaching, and self-reflection
- Team-based efforts to explore and develop innovative solution(s) to complex, public health border issues or problems
Program Partners
The Southwest Public Health Leadership Institute’s Leaders across Borders program is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Cooperative Agreement Number U14WC000110; and the U.S.-México Border Health Commission.
Partners include the Pan American Health Organization's U.S.-México Border Office; the U.S. Border State Health Department Offices of Border Health; the Arizona Department of Health Services Office of Border Health; the National Institute of Public Health (Instituto National de Salud Publica, INSP); El Colegio de Sonora and El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, México.
Leaders across Borders Quick LInks:
LaB Home Page | Why Participate? | Tracks & Time Commitment
Registration and Costs | LaB Contact Information
For questions and comments about this web page, please contact Jennie Mullins.
This page was last updated on October 4, 2009.
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