Community Wellness Center Convenings
Pictured: Doctora Daniela "Danny" Dominguez convenes Nuestra Communidad Sana in Cloverdale.
The Healthcare Foundation, with support from our generous donors, the North Sonoma County Healthcare District and Providence, has launched community-led research projects to envision future community wellness centers (CWCs) in Cloverdale and Windsor, with a plan to extend this effort to Healdsburg in 2024. The project is facilitated by leaders from On the Margins, whose mission is “to collaborate with others to design and implement anti-racist, joy-focused, equitable, sustainable, and affirming practices, initiatives, and policies.”
The coalition for the Cloverdale project, which the partner organizations have named Nuestra Comunidad Sana, includes local community-based organizations Nuestra Comunidad, La Familia Sana, and Alexander Valley Healthcare. These convenings are happening in parallel with and informing AVH’s capital campaign to build a new facility in Cloverdale, which will co-locate medical, dental, and behavioral health services. Nuestra Comunidad Sana is geared to supporting the social and cultural life and expressed needs of all residents of Cloverdale, and devotes special attention to lifting the voices of the Latinx community.
“The objective of Nuestra Comunidad Sana,” explains Daniela Dominguez, CEO of On the Margins, “is to use a grassroots approach led by BIPOC Cloverdale communities to envision a safe, vibrant, green, community space of belonging.” The ideas and perspectives of neighborhood residents are leading forces in the design and implementation of Nuestra Comunidad Sana, beginning with the development and planning process itself.
“The objective of Nuestra Communidad Sana is to use a grassroots approach led by BIPOC Cloverdale communities to envision a safe, vibrant, green, community space of belonging.”
Doctora Daniela “Danny” Dominguez
In July of 2022, Nuestra Comunidad Sana began convening community meetings to gather input, generate engagement, and register the ideas, concerns, and needs among Cloverdale residents. In addition to public meetings, this data collection phase involves neighborhood residents in focus groups and participatory mapping workshops, as well as individual interviews, surveys, and canvassing.
Planning for the Windsor community wellness center convenings is underway, facilitated again by On the Margins, with coalition members from Nuestra Comunidad and Alliance Medical Center.
The two-year Healthcare Foundation grants support the facilitation, outreach and other costs associated with the community meetings and focus groups, including stipends and childcare so that low-income folks and working parents can participate in the visioning and planning process. We look forward to sharing updates in our monthly newsletter as well as the community-envisioned designs and plans to be presented by On the Margins
in its final reports in late 2024.
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