We believe that residents working together is a powerful catalyst for sustainable change and community transformation. All our projects are designed with intentional focus in the process as well as outcomes, realizing that a participatory community-based process will result in further community empowerment. Under this Program Area, we implement our flagship initiative:

 

The Community Leadership Academies program is a community-based training and grassroots leadership incubator, developing community advocates to address place-base health and social issues while developing a community coalition of service providers and community members with the capacity to address community needs. Participants are engaged in a systematic curriculum covering a variety of health topics depending on specific contextual needs, typically in cohorts of 10-15 members during 8-10 weeks. For 'graduation', participants develop action plans to address critical community issues. Latino Health Collaborative provides ongoing support for up to one year to program graduates. This is a three-year program supported through generous funding of First 5 San Bernardino.

 

This action-oriented model enhances the capacity of communities to utilize participatory and solution-focused processes to take inventory of assets and resources, interpret and apply findings, and to develop solutions that have broad-based community support to address community needs. It is important to note however, that the focus is not only on the outcome, but also on the process itself, as a mobilizing force while strengthening levels of social capital among community members, which will also contribute to sustained change in the communities. To date, 48 community members have completed the Community Leadership Academy with the capacity to actively engage organizations and policymakers to address critical needs in under-served communities in the region.