CM Messages

I was sitting in Professor John Hatch’s “Rural Health” class in graduate school twenty-five years ago when I first really learned about community engagement. I latched onto his words, “When you go to a small, rural community [to do research, program development, or to provide support], first, just sit, listen, [...]

As a young professional, when do I choose to offer my lived experience and when do I choose not to? And where does the lived-experience go when I'm not a 'youth' anymore? Which part of my lived experience do I choose to offer in this part of the conversation? When [...]

“Collective Impact is a framework to tackle deeply entrenched and complex social problems. It is an innovative and structured approach to making collaboration work across government, business, philanthropy, non-profit organisations and citizens to achieve significant and lasting social change.” The Collective Impact Framework | Collaboration for Impact www.collaborationforimpact.com/collective-impact In order [...]

A refrain that struck a chord with many during the Project AWARE grantees meeting held in MD last week was Abraham Joshua Heschel’s statement that “few are guilty, but all are responsible.” I continue to grapple with its’ meaning as I try to address the work of inequities (term used [...]

We have known for years that there is great benefit to engaging persons with lived-experiences; both youth served by agencies and programs, and family members who have advocated for others in various systems. Their first hand observations, experiences and outcomes inform the implementation of services, supports and programs, policy development, [...]

When I decided to research the relationship between drinking and sexual assault for sexual assault awareness month (April), I did an internet search of the two terms and found 3,280,000 hits in 34 seconds. So what is the connection? According to Dr. Scott Hampton from the State University of New [...]