MARSHALL — Public comments at upcoming forums will help to shape the direction of Southwest Health and Human Services for the next five years.

Three meetings at different locations in the six-county SHHS service area will take place in June. The first will be at 1:30 p.m. June 10, at the Lincoln County Courthouse Assembly Room in Ivanhoe.

It will be followed by two 1 p.m. sessions. They’re planned for June 19 at the Lyon County Courthouse Commissioners Room in Marshall and June 26 at the Human Service Conference Room in Pipestone.

SHHS Director Beth Wilms said residents of the six counties can attend any of three sessions. The meeting in Ivanhoe will be a combined comment opportunity for the public and staff. The others are scheduled only for public feedback.

“We’d like a strong public turnout at all of them,” Wilms said. “It’s an opportunity for everyone to tell us what the priorities should be for the next five years. Involvement from staff and the public is a very important part of developing the five-year plan.”

She said the process for the 2020-24 plan will involve a different strategic planning tool that what was used in the past.

Recent five-year plans have included a SWOT analysis, one of most common methods for goal-setting in both business and public organizations. SWOT sorts out strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (factors that could act as barriers to reaching objectives).

The new model, called SOAR, takes the same information and sorts it into strengths, opportunities, aspirations and results.

“The SOAR concept is more strength-based,” Wilms said. “It focuses on the assets we have at the starting point, and branches out into how we could turn them into new accomplishments.”

Wilms and SHHS Public Health Division Director Carol Biren listed several successful initiatives that grew out of goals identified in the formulation of the 2015-19 plan.

Among the examples were preventive concepts such as the Towards Zero Deaths traffic safety campaign, crisis response education such as the Active Shooter Training program, and peer support activities including one-to-one mentorship projects.

“The successes we’ve had in the recent past are useful in deciding new goals and then working toward ways of meeting them,” Biren said. “We’ll look back as we start going forward with new plans.”

The process of five-year plan development, from initial meetings to final approval by the six-county joint powers board, was outlined at the May monthly board meeting.

Lyon County Commissioner Charlie Sanow, an SHHS joint powers board member, said the SOAR planning method should provide a good framework for setting new objectives.

“It puts emphasis on looking for what’s positive,” Sanow said. “That should help in looking for good ways to invest the funding that’s available.”