Our History

CHW received its 501(c)3 status in 2000. Since then, CHW has been awarded grants and contracts totaling more than $10 million dollars to eliminate differences in health outcomes. Most of the organization’s programs have focused on maternal and child health.

CHW’s largest grant, the Gadsden Federal Healthy Start Project, has served thousands of women and children with case management provided by social workers and a nurse. Education programs focus on risk factors associated with poor health and poor birth outcomes, nutrition, mental health counseling, and financial/health literacy. The project also assists participants with furthering their education and preparing participants for employment.

Our Team

CHW is staffed by a talented multidisciplinary team with expertise in social work, behavioral health, nursing, nutritional health and wellness, research, evaluation, community development and public health. These individuals have a proven track record of successfully reshaping care systems in rural counties to maximize limited resources.

Directors at CHW have over 30 years of experience in state and local maternal and child health services: program development and evaluation in Florida’s Title V Office and the Florida Healthy Start Program; directing the Gadsden CDC REACH project and holding key committee memberships in statewide initiatives to improve maternal and child health data and data presentation through the state’s Community Health Assessment Resource Tool Set; and leadership positions with statewide nonprofit organizations such as the Florida Ounce of Prevention and Healthy Families. Community-based experience includes working with communities in program design, implementation, and evaluation throughout Florida. Staff at CHW has expertise in public health, program evaluation, health systems analysis, social work, social marketing, business administration, data systems and analysis, and community development.

CHW partners have an extensive network of contacts with rural health agencies, including health departments, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC), rural hospitals, schools, maternal and child health agencies, child welfare agencies, faith-based organizations, grassroots/community-based nonprofit organizations, and physicians/physician partner organizations. This unique combination of education, skills, experience, and considerable public service involvement foster CHW’s ability to focus on specific activities that address programs in public health and community preventive health services for the benefit of communities across Florida.

The Project Director and administrative staff have focused much emphasis on improving the maternal and child health system of care in Gadsden County, working closely with the local health department, the FQHC, and other maternal and child health partners to improve the quality of services and service delivery. Satisfaction surveys of CHW program participants have remained consistently high with more than 90% expressing very high satisfaction with services.

CHW is well versed in management and oversight of grants and contract funds. The project Executive Director and the Director of Operations were awarded funding in 2008 through the federal Health Resources and Services Administration and the Johnson and Johnson Foundation to attend the J&J/UCLA Executive Health Management program; they graduated and received certificates from the John D. Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA. For the 19-plus years of operation, CHW projects have been funded by Healthcare Resources Services Administration (Maternal and Child Health Bureau and the Office of Rural Health), the National Institutes of Health (through a contract with Florida A&M University), the Florida Department of Health (through the Office of Chronic Disease), the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, the National Association of County and City Health Officials, Florida Blue Foundation, Florida Covering Kids and Families Navigator Program (through a contract with the University of South Florida), and a variety of other funding partners.

Challenges and Opportunities

At a time when old ways of approaching community health must be revamped with a focus on harnessing grassroots community knowledge and energy, CHW has taken a leading role. The challenge — finding new ways of working within local communities to decrease the dramatic health differences — is enormous, but success is more than a possibility. The opportunities are enormous, and a public/private partnership that will facilitate the achievement of CHW’s vision and mission is the direction to move in for success.

Staff