A qualitative research design was utilised to develop common themes across focus groups, a workshop and key informant interviews. The findings suggest that there is a need for a formal community health network to provide an efficient and timely means to link the expertise required to tackle complex community health policy problems, and to create supports for advancing community health science with relevant and high quality research. This work was foundational to the development of a public health network- CHNET WORKS! (http://www.chnet-works.ca/)