Post by CHC Program Director, Karen Berg
Each year CHC members take on projects within their host site organization to improve the health and wellbeing of the community they are serving. As the Program Director, most of what I “see” of our member’s direct service is through their semi-monthly time sheets and activity logs. So a few times a year I like to hit the pavement to visit our members ‘in the trenches’ as they educate, engage and link community members to health services.
My tour of CHC sites October 17th – 24th gave me an opportunity to check in with members one-on –one, learn more about what they are doing, where they serve and at some sites see them in action.
Monday October 17th: Neerja Joshi met me in the lobby of bustling Stroger Hospital in Cook County. Clad in her blue lab coat, Neerja guided me through the labyrinth of wards and hallways to her office in the Department of Radiation Oncology. Serving with the American Cancer Society-Illinois Division, Neerja has been busy designing a volunteer program to expand the services to cancer patients at the hospital. Before leaving, I listened to Neerja describe ACS services to a newly diagnosed patient and successfully schedule him for his first visit with a social worker.
Tuesday October 18th: The Amundsen School Based Health Center’s bulletin board was the first glimpse I had of Matt Dudley’s host site. Matt gave me a tour of the clinic and of the health education materials he’s designing for Erie’s health campaigns. Matt has made connections within the school from ‘unknowingly’ meeting the principal to establishing a great connection with the P.E. instructor. Leaving one high school for another, I met member Ayla Karamustafa at Lakeview High School’s School Based Health Center. Both centers, sponsored by Erie Family Health Center, are new host sites this year. Ayla has jumped right in setting up a texting reminder program for patients and designing a health education bulletin board. Rounding out the day was Perspectives Charter Middle School to visit Antionette Fisher who is completing her 2010 term of service at the end of December. Antionette, better known as Mickey to the students, was running non-stop to bring students into health compliance so they could remain in school. That means lots of reminders home, calls to parents and trips with students to the school health center.
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Matt Dudley stands outside the Viking Health Center at Amundsen High School. |
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Ayla Karamustafa shows off the educational bulletin board within the Lakeview School Based Health Center. |
Wednesday October 19th: Erie Family Health Center is a long standing host site of the Chicago Health Corps. While the school sites are new for Erie and CHC, I started my day at Erie’s Humboldt Park site that opened in 1986 to visit Nina Litton and Rebecca Maddrell. It was my first look at the newly renovated health center and health promotions department. Nina and Rebecca gave me the grand tour and shared stories of their health education and outreach efforts across the community. One of Nina’s priorities is re-engaging patients with diabetes to receive medical services. Rebecca shared stories of her nutrition education classes with children. That afternoon, I visited Devin Payne at the Erie Teen Center. Devin is gearing up for the upcoming flu season by developing outreach and educational materials that will be used at Erie’s school-based sites in addition to the Teen Center.
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Nina Litton and Rebecca Maddrell at Erie Family Health Center-Humboldt Park |
Thursday October 20th: My visit with Jessica Torres was an active start to my day escorting students to and from dental van visits AND vision/hearing screenings at her site. Jessica is an alumnus of her host site, Orozco Academy in Pilsen, and in addition to linking students to services, she assists with after school programs including a running and health careers club. After catching my breath from my morning at Orozco, I met up with Maggie Grinnell and Lily Camp at another Erie community health center in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood. Maggie and Lily were busy researching answers to questions from high school students in their Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) class that they teach at Noble Street Charter School. They are also planning a new curriculum for Erie’s La Vida Sana program for women.
Friday October 21st: My calendar entry for this day was “Respiratory Health Association (RHA)” day. RHA, a long standing CHC host site, hosts four CHC members this year. I began my day with Danielle Nelson who supports RHA’s lung health programs. Danielle is preparing for the annual COPD conference that brings together hundreds of people living with COPD to an educational and social event in November. After that I headed to the ‘Jungle’—the cubicle shared by members Lisa-Sun Gresham, Savannah Jackson and James Raspanti—where they were preparing for the afternoon’s Fight Asthma Now (FAN) class. We piled into the RHA’s Toyota and headed to Melrose Park where the terrific trio was teaching over 25 students ranging from 4th to 8th grade. The kids flowed into the classroom greeting their instructors for their final lesson about asthma and how they can manage it. James, Savannah and Lisa-Sun lead them through activities that had them talking and, at one point, even jumping up and down.
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Sydney Weydemeyer “Farmer Sydney” distributes vegetable seeds to kids at the end of a Truck Farm education session. |
Monday October 24th: Alina Nuth and I walked through the halls of Uplift Community Academy in the Uptown neighborhood after she distributed consent forms to students in their homeroom classes. Alina spends half of her week at Uplift and the other half across the street at Heartland International Health Center’s newest community site on Wilson Avenue. Alina is the clinic’s first ever AmeriCorps member and she is busy creating nutrition education materials and soliciting area businesses to create a children’s play area in the waiting room. Next up was a visit to Truck Farm with Farmer Sydney (a.k.a. Sydney Weydemeyer) at Nettlehorst Elementary school. I learned standing shoulder to shoulder with 1st graders about nutritious foods and how fruits and vegetables grow from the back of Petunia, the farm on wheels. That evening I headed to Chicago’s Austin community for a Food Day event at Westside Health Authority’s brand new community kitchen. Member Sana Syal is the first AmeriCorps member at WHA and was instrumental in organizing the educational event complete healthy food tastings and cooking demonstrations. Sana expertly moderated the panel of speakers from Chicago organizations that are striving to bring fresh and nutritious foods to Chicago communities.
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Sana Syal moderates a panel of speakers at the Westside Health Authority’s Food Day community forum. |
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