Just about every community group has a “mother hen” – a trusted elder to whom people turn with questions, and who can connect them with services — as one community health advocate describes it for Illinois Health Matters. Such grassroots leaders will be crucial to the success of health reform, according to a new report [2] for IHM’s Neighborhood Stories.
Especially in underserved areas, community groups have important work to do as health reform rolls out – educating community members, helping them navigate the new system, and providing feedback to health providers.
Some of that work is underway. This summer the Illinois Maternal and Child Health Coalition [3] and other groups held a webinar on health reform for 100 people representing community groups. Erie Neighborhood House [4] is discussing workshops for its clients on health reform.
Neighborhood Stories also features a new photo essay, Wellness on the Westside [5], looking at the work of the Lawndale Christian Health Center [6] and profiling one of the center’s clients, Eliazar Mejia.