2019 MNCHWA Statewide Conference

• Cathy Weik, MAL, SPHR, Senior Vice President, Administration/Compliance Officer, Stratis Health, MNCHWA Board Chair
• LaTanya Black, CHW Certificate Holder, CHW Leadership Program Graduate, Consultant, MNCHWA Board Vice Chair

Invited: Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan

• Medtronic Team

• Dr. Kathleen Call, Associate Profession and DGS, University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Health Policy and Management and SHADAC

• Lucas Zellmer, University of Minnesota Medical Student

  • Facilitators: Matt Flory and Julie Ralston Aoki, MNCHWA Board/Policy Committee Members

• Sarah Redding, MD, MPH, Pathways Community Hub Institute, Mansfield Ohio

CHW Track: Mind Body and Cultural Strategies for Self-Care and Client Work

• Suzanne Koepplinger, Director, Catalyst Initiative, Minneapolis Foundation
• Atum Azzahir, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Cultural Compliance Officer, Elder Consultant in African Ways of Knowing. Cultural Wellness Center
• CHW Panel

Supervisor/Other Track: Supervising an Emerging Profession for Success

• Wendy Potratz, North West Tech, Bemidji, MN
• Christine Bullerman, Sanford Health, Worthington, MN
• Kristin Godfrey Walters, Hennepin Health
• Foua Choua-Khang, Fairview HealthEast

CHW Alliance Update

• LaTanya Black

Advancing Equity and Health Equity: CHWs as Internal Catalysts.

• Vayong Moua, Health Equity Advocacy Director, Blue Cross Blue Shield

CHW Track: Building Health Equity; CHW Leadership and Vision

• Damon Shoholm, Director, James P. Shannon Leadership Institute, Amherst Wilder Foundation.

Supervisor/Other Track: CHW Billing and Contracting Clinic: What’s New?

• Megan Curran de Nieto, CHW Solutions
• Tara Nelson, IMAA and Katherine Olmstead County Public Health
• More presenters to be announced

• Tina Jackson, Instructor

• Durrell Fox and Lisa Renee Holderby Fox, CHWs and Independent Consultants, Atlanta, Georgia  

Adjourn

Lisa Renee Holderby-Fox is a community health worker (CHW) with almost 30 years of experience providing case management, community outreach, education and advocacy. She has worked with communities, families, individuals program administrators and legislators to promote overall health and health equity. Lisa Renee has served children and families working for long established programs such as Women Infants and Children (WIC) Nutrition Services and Head Start, as well as federal demonstration projects. Today, Lisa Renee is a CHW Strategy Consultant bringing together her years of experience in policy development, supervising, educating and promoting CHW workforce. 

Ms. Holderby-Fox has been actively engaged in the local, state and national CHW movements for over 17 years. She is a founding member of the Massachusetts Association of Community Health Workers and served as the organization’s first executive director.  Lisa Renee is also a founder of the National Association of Community Health workers and the New England CHW Coalition. She has offered expertise to many initiatives including the HRSA National Community Health Worker Workforce Study Technical Advisory Group, Community Health Worker Core Consensus Project, Advisory Workgroup for the Massachusetts CHW Board of Certification and numerous interprofessional oral health collaboratives. She has held several leadership positions at the American Public Health Association (APHA), including serving on Governing Council, Nominating Committee and as an appointed APHA Program Planner at Large.  She served as an appointed member of the Massachusetts Prevention and Wellness Trust Fund Advisory Board and served 2 terms as an appointed member of the National Healthcare Workforce Commission, created in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010.

She has been an invited speaker at conferences throughout the United States and in Canada including American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting, Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA)Annual Meeting, Unity Conference, University of Tennessee Law School Health Forum and the Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership Annual Meeting. Over the years she has delivered keynote addresses at the Unity Conference, Massachusetts Patient Navigator Conference, Michigan Community Health Worker Alliance and the Arkansas Community Health Worker Association Annual Conference.

Ms. Holderby-Fox has been honored with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health 2018 Commissioner’s Leadership Award, Massachusetts Association of Community Health Workers’ 2016 Outstanding CHW Advocate, Massachusetts Public Health Association’s 2013 Lemuel Shattuck Award and the APHA’s 2008 Helen Rodriguez-Trias Social Justice Award.

She is married to Durrell Fox and together they have 6 adult children Darnell, Shey, Carley, Andrea, Dallas and Daysia. They also have 2 granddaughters Aja and Taya.

Durrell J. Fox is a Community Health Worker (CHW) with over 27 years of experience providing outreach, direct services, case management support and advocacy for HIV+ adolescents/young adults, their families and communities. He joined JSI in 2015 and for 2 years served as a Technical Advisor for the MA Department of Public Health’s Prevention and Wellness Trust Fund (PWTF) Project, which employed over 70 CHWs across the state addressing diabetes, hypertension, asthma and senior falls. He is currently a Community Health Worker-Health Equity Consultant at JSI providing technical assistance and support for several Healthy Start CHW, Fatherhood and HIV projects. He is a proud member of the CHW workforce continuing to serve in a volunteer CHW role coordinating and staffing a young men’s rites of passage program.

Since 1991 Durrell has been involved in local, state, regional and national CHW workforce development efforts including serving as one of the founding members of the CHW Section of the American Public Health Association; the American Association of CHWs; the Massachusetts Association of CHWs; the New England CHW Coalition; and the Advisory Workgroup for the Massachusetts CHW Board of Certification. He also serves as a member of the CHW National Core Consensus (C3) Project Team and is a member of the interim and founding boards of the National Association of CHWs.

Durrell is one the sons of MA State Rep. Gloria Fox. He has six children (ages 38-Darnell; 36-Shey; 33-Carley; 30-Dallas; 24-Andrea; and 21-Daysia), and two grandchildren (ages: 16-Aja; 9-Taya Marie). For over 20 years he has volunteered for the Paul Robeson Institute for Positive Self Development (PRI), a Saturday program for 3^rd – 12^th grade students operated by the Concerned Black Men of MA and has served as PRI co-director for over 4 years.

Dr. Sarah Redding currently serves as the Executive Director of the Pathways Community HUB Institute (PCHI). Prior to that, she served as the Chief Executive Officer for Care Coordination Systems, and the Executive Director of the Community Health Access Project (CHAP). CHAP is a nonprofit organization based in Mansfield, Ohio that she and her husband Mark helped start in 1999. Sarah has been involved with community health workers (CHWs) for over 25 years and was instrumental in obtaining state certification for CHWs in Ohio under the Board of Nursing. She worked to develop and implement Pathways and the Pathways Community HUB model. Her recent work has focused on community care coordination to address health disparities. Sarah received her medical degree from Wright State University and a Master’s of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University. She completed her residency in General Preventive Medicine at Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Redding will be available the evening of May 2 for groups working on a Hub model. Contact Anne Ganey at atganey@gmail.com for more information.

Vayong Moua is responsible for developing strategy and action for Blue Cross’ prevention and health equity advocacy initiatives to reduce tobacco use, obesity, and health inequities among all Minnesotans.  Moua focuses on integrating health equity into policy advocacy approaches and structural solutions.  Moua currently chairs the Cultural and Ethnic Communities Leadership Council (CECLC) that catalyzed the Department of Human Service’s agency wide equity policy.  Moua also co-founded the Minnesota Complete Streets Coalition that led passage of Minnesota’s state Complete Streets law. 

Moua received his bachelors of arts with a triple major in philosophy, sociology/anthropology, and Asian studies from St. Olaf College.  He received his MPA from the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Moua was a Public Policy and International Affairs Fellow, LAAMPP Fellow, and Humphrey Policy Fellow.  He currently serves on the board of directors for Transit for Livable Communities (TLC), Asian Pacific Partners for Empowerment, Advocacy, and Leadership (APPEAL), and Neighborhood House.   He came to this country as a Hmong refugee and along with his spouse, Pha Chia, enjoys raising Ishii.

Damon Shoholm has been with the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation in its Wilder Center for Communities for over a decade and currently serves as Director of the James P. Shannon Leadership Institute. The Shannon Institute provides established leaders the opportunity to gain clarity around values, purpose and those things that matter most to them in order that they might align them with the contributions they make to our community or their work.

Additionally, Damon provides consultancy services in facilitation, community engagement, and leadership development to support organizations and individuals in being most connected and effective.

All of that said, Damon believes his real job description is that of supporting change makers among us in multiple ways and at multiple entry points in community.

Damon holds a B.A. in History from Metropolitan State University, a M.A. in Leadership from Augsburg University, and is a 2017 graduate of the Humphrey Policy Fellows Program of the University of Minnesota.

President and Executive Director for The Cultural Wellness Center

In ceremonies that were held in 1989, 1990 through 1992 Atum Azzahir received titles of Elder, Shemsu and Mother from the Communities of African People in America, the Caribbean and the African continent, to whom she has dedicated her life’s work.

Elder Atum is a teacher and a practitioner of African Thought & Spirituality.

Received her D-Litt Kemii Doctor of Literature from the International Khepran Institute in 2007. This honor acknowledges Elder Atum’s work in building sustainable, cultural institutions in African communities. She has developed and managed organizations, written and produced other materials on African intellectual heritage. She has designed Rites of Passages Programs, Initiations, and Ceremonies for Healing. The institutions she founded have created community models for Workforce Redevelopment, Entrepreneurship and Mediation practices in order for the African in America to interface in mainstream communities. People who have studied with Elder Atum are in key leadership positions across the country in various institutions and many have consistently returned for coaching and connecting for over 23 years.

The 30-year Institution building work by Atum has generated over $30 million dollars within the African American Community. Over 1,000 people have received womanhood and manhood training, marriage ceremonies, naming ceremonies; birth labor coaching, conflict resolution & mediation, dialogue & effective communications and jobs/business development training.

Atum received the Leadership in Neighborhood’s Award in 1997. She traveled and studied with Elders in West African Countries: Ghana, Senegal, Benin Republic and Caribbean Countries: Bahamas, Jamaica, Grenada and many states in the United States. She took what she describes as an Intellectual Pilgrimage with her teacher and husband Ahmad Azzahir to Egypt.

In 1994 Elder Atum was awarded the McKnight Foundation Fellowship to serve as a Salzburg Fellow in Salzburg Austria. She later served as an advisor and was instrumental in selecting nine other local residents for this international recognition in Salzburg Austria.

In 1997 she received the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Community Health Leadership award of $100,000 for the innovative approach to health in the Powderhorn community. The Healthy Powderhorn initiative resulted in the cultural approaches to health and wellness which is now a field of study called “Cultural Wellness.” This approach is integrated in the work of the Cultural Wellness Centers’ in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

In 2008 Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation acknowledged Atum for Authorship of The Cultural Wellness Centers’ “People’s Theory of Sickness” with their prestigious leadership in Health Award and invested $15,000 in the work of Elder Atum.

Other Acknowledgments

• Race Unity Award-Minneapolis Baha’i Community (2000)
• 100 Most Influential Health Leaders Physicians Monthly Magazine
• International Black Women’s Congress (ONI) Award (2011)

Tina Jackson has been teaching Soul Line Dance since 2009. She has taught Soul Line Dancing at corporations such as 3M, Medtronic, and Ameriprise; St. Paul Parks and Rec and numerous elementary and high school, churches, family, community and dance events.

Soul Line Dancing is similar to country line dancing, except it is done to R and B music and which adds soul. The best part is, you don’t need a partner to line dance.

Soul Line Dancing is a fun way to exercise and be fit. It is good for the mind, the body and the soul.

Suzanne Koepplinger is the director of the Catalyst Initiative at the Minneapolis Foundation. Catalyst’s purpose is to honor and foster culturally authentic self-care practices to advance health and well-being. Previously she served for ten years as the executive director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, where she led the first research, community response, and program implementation in the country to address sex trafficking of American Indian women and girls. In that capacity, she has twice testified before Congress and is a certified trainer for the Office for Victims of Crime Training and Technical Assistance Center (OVC TTAC) and the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center (NHTTTC). Suzanne holds a Master’s degree in the Art of Leadership from Augsburg University in Minneapolis, and is one of 15 national leaders chosen for the NoVo Foundation’s first Move to End Violence cohort. She has extensive international experience as a trainer and public speaker. Current community service includes board membership with ArtSpace and Frank Theatre.