Adult Community Education
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Adult Community Education
In 1971, La Clínica was born from a movement to create social change to improve the health of underserved communities. This tradition continues to burn brightly in La Clínica's Community Health Education (Casa CHE) section. Casa CHE programs provide people the tools to actively participate in and take responsibility for their own education, while promoting the idea that the community is capable of creating positive social change. Community members attend a series of workshops to develop leadership, organizational, and communication skills. Once trained, the Promotores (health promoters) conduct health education presentations, plan workshops for community groups and organize health-related activities and actions. Adult Education Program Areas include:
Violence Prevention With a focus on Intimate Partner Violence (IPA), our Health Educators teach parents, children and students skills such as: communication, anger management, and identification of root causes of conflict and violence. This program spawned a Latino Men’s Group, with the goal to develop accountability for men in preventing IPV violence. Recently, we have developed a Latino Community Mobilization team made up of neighborhood and organizational leaders who work to create changes in institutions that contribute to IPV/DV and other related violence. Child Obesity Prevention In collaboration with the Preventive Medicine department, our health educators and Promotores help parents to develop parenting skills to effectively communicate with their child about eating and physical activity. This curriculum follows the “Division of Responsibilities” methodology developed by Ellen Satter. Parent Leadership Development Health Educators have adapted content from the School for Health Promoters to help build other parent leadership groups in the area. This curriculum is based on the concept of "education for action," and aims to challenge people to change the behavior of their communities and move toward action. Some of the topics we address through this 10-series classes are: how to analyze the root causes of the problems that affect us, facilitate a group discussion, make group decisions, and plan and conduct an action. Community Organizing Casa CHE is currently developing activities to sustain and expand the Latino immigrant community’s ability to influence legislative initiatives related to health access and health care delivery. We are working with two projects that focus on community organizing. Proyecto Cambio is a project that challenges community members to be critical of media messages and discuss ways in which they can impact television programming and content. La Clínica has also hired a Health Educator that will focus on community organizing and advocacy. Her role is to train La Clínica staff and community members on policy implementation. |
