Alejandrina has extensive experience as a CMA and CHW working with the uninsured and underinsured population in the Travis County community. She’s very excited to meet, learn and exchange community resources with others and work together to educate and help the community.

Alice is currently a third-year student in the Master of Social Work Hybrid program at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She is interested in both clinical and macro approaches to social work practice as well as social determinants of health. She has worked in the nonprofit field in Austin for over a decade and is currently working as a Grants Program Manager with Austin Public Health. She has extensive professional experience navigating public benefit programs and advocating for community members. She also has an extensive background in Medicare/Medicaid in Texas.

Since moving to Texas, Allie has been working at Austin Public Health and the WIC program. WIC — also known as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — serves infants, children, and pregnant or postpartum participants who are low income and provides food benefits, nutrition and breastfeeding education, and healthcare referrals. During the pandemic, it became clear that there was a critical need for the organization to meet families where they’re at to provide WIC services — so she joined our first travel team.

As an MPH graduate from California Baptist University, Amber’s professional interests include health behavior change and health education, addressing health inequities and working with underserved communities.

Angela is a recovered mental support specialist in the training stage. She hopes to be certified soon. She believes in whole health healing because she has a terminal illness. Currently she uses nutritional information, diet and exercise for her severe RA. She enjoys helping others, and hopes to bring enough knowledge to this program and learn more.

Arvind is an Emergency Medical Technician and a Public Health student at the University of Texas at Austin. Working as an EMT over the last couple of years has made him a witness to the inequities that affect people across our communities, from access to nutritious food and water to overall unhealthy public health practices. As a public health major, he is committed to understanding systemic issues that our individuals face and the small steps we can take to alleviate these obstacles. He hopes to utilize this experience throughout his journey in the healthcare field, leveraging these skills to improve access and equity in Central Texas.

Barbara has an Associate Degree in Human Services-Deaf Communication. She has always enjoyed helping people and would like to get back into sign language because we do have a Deaf Community in Austin.

Brandon is the former VP Colony Park Neighborhood Association who was also appointed to the Austin/Travis County Food Policy Board by the Austin City Council. He’s happy to participate in the program because it will help get a better quality of care for everyone. Central Health has one of the best low-income healthcare systems in Texas and he wants to make it better and more efficient.

Christopher is a new Community Health Worker with UT/Dell Med, Lonestar Circle of Care. He has spent a large portion of his career working in and around the Austin area in clinics and hospitals. Being a Community Health Champion means the opportunity to learn about available programs to better serve the communities and increase health equity for all.

Clarissa holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work from The University of Texas at Austin and Master’s degree in Social Work from The University of Texas at Arlington. She has been working with CommUnityCare since 2017 as a medical social worker on the Care Management team. She is highly interested in promoting the health and wellbeing of her communities, particularly the BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ communities. These communities have been marginalized by society and their voices have historically not been heard, but she wants to be an advocate and a voice.

Courtney is just starting her career in healthcare consulting as a project specialist, yet when first getting into health she was interested in becoming a nurse. This inspired her to acquire her CNA license and later work in two different hospitals – one focused on post-operation rehabilitation and the other on a palliative care floor. In college she switched her major from nursing to public health as the pandemic was becoming more prominent. It was there that she took courses and learned on the topic of community health.

Drew grew up in Allen, TX, but has lived in Central Texas since 2012. She attended college at Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX, where she earned a B.A. in Anthropology in 2016. Her focus of study was on sociocultural constructions of health and illness. She has had the pleasure and privilege of interning and working at several organizations that impact healthcare at the local, state, and national level. She is continuing on that path as a new employee in Central Health’s Strategy Department

Emily is currently a Master’s student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. She is passionate about food, storytelling and body liberating movement. To her, being a Community Health Champion means learning about the current health system and brainstorming ways to increase access for marginalized communities. Through this program, she hopes to gain insight from other members and learn more about how she can be involved in change throughout her career.

Guadalupe is a Community Healthcare Worker with over 15 years of experience working in healthcare. Over the years she has seen the needs of our communities change and increase and it is becoming more important that organizations-both private and faith based, local city governments, and educational institutions work together to develop programs to help support the ever-changing needs of our families. She looks forward to participating in the Community Health Champions program to continue to expand my knowledge and understanding of what resources, education and information is vital to serving and supporting our under-served communities.

Following his arrival in the United States from Mexico 4 years ago, Guillermo, an architect and bartender, immediately noticed a lack of healthcare access in his community which he believed to be a major barrier to personal and family development. Together with his wife Lupita, a Community Health Champion alumna, he hopes to take a shared passion for healthcare equity to raise awareness for medical services and access to healthcare for vulnerable members in their community. They currently volunteer together at Austin Voices for Education and Youth.

Heissel works with CommUnityCare in Cancer Care Prevention. Her interest in health equity stems from her early experience of not having much access to healthcare. When her uncle was diagnosed with cancer, the family was thrown into an overwhelming and confusing system. A social worker stepped in and it would influence her entire career path. During her graduate program, she had the opportunity to learn more about healthcare social work, the gaps in our healthcare, and have discussions regarding health equity. A Community Health champion means a chance to continue having these conversations and see the work in our community.

Jairo is currently a Masters of Social Work Candidate at the University of Texas at Austin in the clinical concentration track. Prior to enrollment at UT Austin, Jairo worked in numerous work settings such as schools, non-profits, and residential treatment centers. Throughout these various settings he has supported a myriad of individuals such as adolescents, Spanish-Speaking immigrant families, low-income high school students, and college students. Issues found within some of these groups consisted of dual-diagnosis challenges, lack of access to healthcare services, housing instability, higher education barriers, interpersonal growth, among other circumstances. What a “Community Health Champion” means to Jairo is accountability, being accountable to those he seeks to empower, to engage in substantive conversations that might otherwise be unavailable to people whose voices need to be heard, and ultimately, use his skills, lived experience, strengths, and time for the overall well-being of communities most impacted by health inequity in Travis County.

Becoming a Community Health Champion is work that is close to Jeanette’s heart and is part of what she would refer to as her life’s work. Specifically, her focus/interest on the impact of institutionalized racism on Black and brown bodies leads her to pursue the Health Champion role from the systemic level rather than focused solely on individual behaviors or reducing poverty, improving access alone. From this experience as a Health Champion, Monsalve hopes to put all the information learned here and her cumulative experience and knowledge together and reach a deeper level of consciousness around health equity. She would like to have and inspire more conversations and share the skills gained with her colleagues, participants, the birth worker community, and funders.

Born in Korea and raised in Dallas, Jeni moved to Austin in 2006. She began her nonprofit career in education and youth development. Through her work with youth and families, Jeni became passionate about community advocacy and crisis intervention. Since then, she has worked at national and regional levels of advocacy in the areas of intimate partner violence, behavioral health, and grief and loss. She currently helps facilitate vaccine access as part of the VaxTogetherAustin team and is a member of the Texas Victim Services Association. Her desire to further support the healthcare needs of Travis County residents, through collaborative relationships and an equity-based framework, inspired her to join the Community Health Champions program.

Joycelyn has worked at the intersection of schools and communities for 15 years, focusing on whole child initiatives that included a foundation of health and wellness. She works in social justice, community-based work with kids and families because it honors the legacy of her Filipino immigrant parents who devoted their lives in service to community, and honors those in the community who helped her family achieve the American dream. In her current position at a statewide health organization, she works in partnership with communities to improve the social conditions and health of Texans. Jurado believes being a Community Health Champion is a way to extend her knowledge and reach, and is interested in becoming a better ambassador and leader that affects the health of Travis County, Central Texas and beyond.

Juliana’s main goal she wants to achieve by being a Community Health Champion is to be able to understand how to better assist our community, and to uncover new methods to assist them. She understands the need for medical assistance programs in our community, and has witnessed and experienced the need. Being part of the Medical Field for over ten years and working closely with FQHC programs and clinics, she decided to be part of this program to bring and share any knowledge she has acquired.

Katie is a Shreveport, Louisiana native. After leaving her hometown, she eventually lived in 10 different cities stateside and another country where she learned to speak Spanish. She believes that being exposed to different cultures and ways of life helped shape her into a well-rounded individual who can empathize with and better understand people of all backgrounds. Katie earned a degree in Fashion Design but later went on to work in the medical field. She now has over a decade of experience in the healthcare industry, working in all types of medical settings along the way. Katie joined Central Health early this year as a Provider Relations Reimbursement Specialist and is excited for the opportunity to get more involved with the population that we serve.

Kent is a passionate and driven I/O practitioner with experience launching nationwide diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. He has work in strategic diversity management for five years, first at Centene Corporation (St. Louis, MO) and now at Central Health (Austin, TX). He has a passion for connecting behavioral principles to the workplace to better understand the makeup of how diversity affects, promotes, and/or disrupts organizational effectiveness. Personally, Kent wanted to become a Community Health Champion to re-connect and re-engage with the fast-changing landscape of Central Texas while continuing to explore his passions in organizational psychology and how it ties to community health equity.

Hailing from Valdosta, Georgia, Keyanna comes with a passion for propelling communities beyond their wildest dreams. She has over six years of experience in the nonprofit, private, and government sectors. Evans is a 2021 graduate of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the University of Texas with a dual Master’s degree in Public Health and Public Affairs, respectfully. Her focus areas included nonprofit studies, health promotion, and social policy. She plans to spread the knowledge/resources gained far and wide with hopes of influencing conversations and change..

Lesley received her Bachelor’s Degree from Texas State University and completed her master’s in Public Administration from Grand Canyon University. She currently works for the Department of Family and Protective Services Department where she serves as a project manager for the Foster Care Litigation section. She hopes to gain insight and knowledge on ways to help the communities in which she serves. She hopes to gain a better understanding of the issues our communities face, and what solutions will be used to address those issues.

Maria is a single mother to a 11 year old, he has been her inspiration to give 100% in helping the community. She strongly believes in social justice and human rights, she has participated as a community leader in the Workers Defense for over 14 years. Now she promotes health in Austin Voices by promoting the COVID-19 vaccine, and she would like to continue helping those in need in the healthcare sector.

Marcela is an active parent leader and volunteer at her children’s schools in AISD. She recently worked for one year as a Promotora helping the Spanish-speaking community of Austin with access to Covid-19 vaccines and education. She is passionate about serving her community and access to healthcare, especially in the Latino community.

Martha is a Community Health Worker with a Mental Health Peer Support State certification at the UT Social Resource Center in Del Valle. She is attending school with a major in General Human Services. Lujan is a strong advocate for social justice and will use her voice to empower any human being she comes across with. She believes any and every program developed needs to incorporate Trauma Informed Care training from lived-experience individuals. Becoming a Community Health Champion means there are great opportunities for learning to expand her knowledge to be able to keep serving the community, and to keep on advocating for mental health awareness programs.

In all her roles, Michele has provided advocacy and information and referral for community services. She has seen first-hand that a large population of individuals in this state do not have access to quality health care, and how that can affect a person’s overall life. Not having access to healthcare means individuals are going to the emergency room for things that people who have health insurance/access to health care would normally go to their primary doctor for. It means fewer preventative services, oftentimes being sicker and not having access to medications because they cannot afford them.

Monica has a Bachelor’s degree in Health Ecology and a Master’s Degree in Health Service Administration. She has worked for Central Health for the past 10 years first in the Eligibility Department and now in the Finance & Procurement Department. She is interested in participating in the Community Health Champions program because she would like to gain insight on how other advocates view Central Health’s role in the health of the community. She loves listening to other people and understanding their perspective because with new perspectives it creates new opportunities for change.

Naomi was born and raised in El Paso and Miami, Florida. She moved to Austin to attend UT Austin where she received my paralegal certificate and Bachelor’s in Cultural Anthropology. She has years of experience as an advocate for women’s reproductive rights and is a trained doula. Caballero has a passion to help connect my community to resources and social services because together we are stronger. For the last year she has worked closely with Spanish-speaking parents and families in the AISD schools as a program coordinator and manager of Covid-19 health education programs to increase vaccination rates in north and east Austin specifically focusing on educating those are not vaccinated and do not have trust in our healthcare systems.

Natalie is a Training Specialist Senior for Austin Public Health; the focus of this new role in the department is professional development on health equity topics for Austin Public Health (APH) staff. She has worked as an educator since 2007, primarily in community arts education with the nationally recognized organization Creative Action. She uses creative and interactive methods to facilitate dialogue and learning around a number of social issues, with a particular passion and focus on racial justice. Goodnow co-led racial justice (diversity, equity, inclusion) initiatives at Creative Action for approximately five years prior to joining APH. She was moved to join the public health field after witnessing the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in communities of color. Goodnow looks forward to bringing knowledge and skills back from Community Health Champions to all the APH staff, and to making increased connections with others working towards health equity in Central Texas.

Raisa has been a Certified Health Education Specialist since 2015. She currently serves as a Public Health Program Supervisor with the City of Austin where she focuses on community health worker strategies to improve health outcomes through chronic disease prevention education and addressing social determinants of health. Charles believes that a community health champion is an individual that supports, encourages, and empowers their community to engage in healthy behaviors and works to remove barriers to healthcare through advocacy and creating supportive networks

Shaayaan leads the solutions team at ClosedLoop, a healthcare AI company in Austin, which helps physicians and care management teams target patients who most need extra care in hopes of preventing hospital admissions and ER visits. He has become convinced that many problems in healthcare stem not from a lack of advanced medicine but from poor access to consistent and quality healthcare. The questions he would ask are: to what extent are these problems a quality-of-life issue? What does local public health have to say about this?

Tania is originally from McAllen, TX and has been living in Austin for the last 16 years. She decided to become a community health worker two years ago because she wanted to make a difference in her community and she’s been working hard at connecting people to resources ever since. Degtoff loves learning about and connecting with other non-profits and CBO’s in the Central Texas area and decided to apply for Community Health Champions to learn more about what Central Health has to offer.

Tri is a community health worker. He is currently working for a nonprofit organization located in Austin. Its mission is to improve the living standards of the Asian community in the greater Austin area. The organization helps people get access to medical and social services that they would be able to get due to language barriers, transportation barriers, and lack of knowledge. Being a Community Health Champion helps him advocate further for his community. He hopes to get more knowledge and resources available in the area to improve his service quality further.

Tricia’s career in volunteering began when her children started elementary school. She engaged with Dress for Success Austin as an image consultant and later as a board member. While a member of the grants committee of the Women’s Fund of Central Texas, she learned about the Austin Diaper Bank where she chaired the inaugural Diaper Bank Bash. She was invited to join the ADB Board and presently leads the Program committee. She also serves on the boards of the Women’s Symphony League, Alpha Phi Alumnae of Austin, and the Austin Alumnae Panhellenic Association.

Yvette’s career goal is to be a clinical social worker with a specialty in trauma. For her MSSW internship, she completed her hours at West Care Next Step About Transitional Housing, a sober living home that assists clients with substance abuse treatment to men exiting incarceration in a peaceful clean like home environment linking them to other services and resources. She finished her MSSW internship hours at Austin Phoenix House & Recovery working with individuals (youth, men & women), families (youth families) and groups (men & women) Latino population.