Learn more about community health workers in Cleveland’s Central neighborhood

Teleange Thomas

The next Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods (PRCHN) seminar will focus on community health workers in Cleveland’s Central neighborhood. The seminar will be held Wednesday, Feb. 10, at noon in the BioEnterprise Building’s ground floor conference room.

Communities and institutions continuously wrestle with solving or mitigating issues (health and education disparities, growing economic opportunity, violence prevention, food access, etc.) and often times do so in silos.

While intentions for implementing “big ideas” for change are good, Cleveland and other cities experience challenges with aligning resources to drive both outcomes and sustainable change. Come to the next PRCHN seminar for a panel discussion exploring the tension points of organizational power, partnership, outcomes verses change and adapting to impact community.

The panel will lead this discussion by presenting a local model implemented in the Central neighborhood through the lens of community health work. Teleange Thomas, director of the Foundation Center Midwest, will lead presenters in a discussion on transparent and conversational approach to the topic.

Co-presenters are Peter Whitt, principal of Enlightenment Consultant Group, LLC and a member of the City of Cleveland’s Community Relations Board, and Joseph Black, who serves as the Cleveland Central Promise Neighborhood Engagement Manager for the Sisters of Charity Foundation.

Thomas holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Management and Entrepreneurial Studies from CWRU and was named a Robert Wood Johnson Ladder to Leadership Fellow in 2010. She is on the Board of Directors for Health Policy Institute of Ohio, Green City Growers Inc. and the Conservancy for the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

For seven years, she served as the program director for health at the Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland.