Building communities that support nourished, active, and joyful residents
Mission
The mission of Healthy Hampshire is to engage residents and institutional partners in co-creating healthy communities through collaborative, power-sharing processes that lead to systemic change.
Approach and Values
How We Work
All of Healthy Hampshire’s work is accomplished through partnerships. We work with a diverse array of community partners throughout Hampshire County and the Hilltowns to foster healthy communities. We do this by:
- Building relationships among people with diverse perspectives to cultivate shared understanding and develop collaborative visions.
- Understanding how white supremacy, settler colonialism, and the other systems of oppression are the root cause of health inequities.
- Cultivating practices that actively disrupt oppressive dominant systems, heal generational trauma, and realize life-affirming ways of working and being together.
- Continuously experimenting with different ways of sharing power, including utilizing decision-making methodologies that are non-hierachical, relational, and consent-based.
- Amplifying and centering people who are systematically excluded from power in goal-setting, decision-making, and evaluation.
Our Values
Our work is rooted in the below values and guiding principles. Click to learn more about each.
Grace
- We check in about capacities regularly, encouraging each other to communicate honestly about our limitations, ask for help when we need it, make clear and honest offers, and enforce our own boundaries.
- We assume good intentions. We practice, make mistakes, own mistakes, hae compassion, and do differently next time.
- We recognize that discomfort is fundamental to growth and we have patience for ourselves and each other as we work through that discomfort.
Joy
- We make space for creativity, laughter, and fun.
- We serve tasty food and drinks as often as we can.
- We spend time together not working.
Disruption
- We encourage those who traditionally hold power to let go and those who traditionally don’t to step into and explore their power.
- We commit to deepening our political analysis of racism and oppression toward the liberation of all people and the abolition of oppressive systems.
Inclusion
- We believe in nothing about us without us: if the outcome of the decision does not affect the people in the room, it is the wrong room for that decision.
- We create tools and practices that offer multiple ways to engage (writing, mind visioning, drawing, movement, etc.).
- We welcome, celebrate, and learn from different cultural traditions.
- We believe that each individual’s motivations and skills are gifts that can be harnassed for the collective good.
Integrity
- We move at the speed of trust and connection, even when that means changing our plans.
- We ask each other to witness and own the way our words land with other people. We recognize that impact is separate from intent, and we encourage honest and heart-centered communication about impact.
Radical Love
- We tell each other when we feel love and empathy for each other.
- We view honesty, integrity, and assertiveness as tools for loving relationships to ourselves and others. We use honest feedback as a tool for fostering loving relationships, even when it is hard.
- We acknowledge each person’s humanity and dignity and stand by the notion that no one is disposable. We are committed to engaging with people through challenge and conflict.
Personal Growth
- We cultivate flexible thinking through relationship building, honest communication, and an openness to questioning.
- If we don’t understand a point of view, we invite people to explain more to help us understand sot hat we can listen and have further dialogue.
- We see the potential in all people to grow through committed practice. We stay in active relationship with one another to engage in transformation, not only of the world around us, but also of our inner selves.
Our Work
Healthy Hampshire’s work fits into three categories:
Community Planning
We work with stakeholders who share our goals to identify policy, systems, and environmental change priorities through community assessment and planning processes.
Coalition Building
We help launch and sustain community coalitions to work on priorities identified through community planning processes.
Program Design and Implementation
We help partners launch programs and projects that emerge as community priorities.
Healthy Hampshire Team
Rossana Salazar
Rossana Salazar is an Early Childhood educator for Latino Families. One of her areas of expertise is comprehensive child care and Early Childhood stimulation. She is an RN, has a Masters in Public Health in the specialty of Community Health Education, and a Graduate Certificate in Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies from the University of Massachusetts. She has many years of experience working with the Latino community, providing direct support to parents, children and families. Her work experience extends to public schools as well as to other institutions dedicated to community work.
Rossana is currently teaching Soluciones Positivas: Sesión 5: En esta sesión se examinarán estrategias específicas que se pueden utilizar para promover el comportamiento positivo en los adultos y en los niños, tanto en el hogar como en la comunidad. Please click on the workshop title to register.
Rossana Salazar is a Community Engagement and Evaluation Specialist who specializes in working with Latino families and communities. She is an RN; has an M.P.H. in Community Health Education; a Graduate Certificate in Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies; and is a doctoral candidate in the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Environmental Conservation Department, working with Latin American Indigenous Communities. She has many years of experience working with community projects, research, and outreach, and providing direct support to families and providers. Her work experience extends to public schools as well as to other institutions dedicated to community work.
Rossana’s professional life has always been linked to direct work with populations of different ages, from newborns to the elderly, studying and understanding the different stages of the life of a human being and then moving on to direct care with the patient and taking charge of their care and recovery both physically and mentally, considering that person as a bio-psycho-social entity in a community context. These experiences have enriched her as a person and allowed her to learn that every human being is unique and singular and all humans need to be treated equitably. As a Public Health professor, Rossana trained students to understand and build the connections between their professional role and the population/people served. In her graduate studies and community projects, she has developed effective working relationships with different communities in the area. As part of the Latino community in this country, she feels a great responsibility to support and work for her community as well as broaden her experience to other communities to improve their quality of life, always seeking social justice. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The House of Representatives, named Rossana the recipient of the Latino Excellence Award for the 3rd Hampshire District in 2022.
Position: Community Engagement and Evaluation Specialist
Email: rsalazar@collaborative.org
Talya Sogoba
Talya Sogoba is a non-binary, Black Muslim from Boston, MA and a first generation Malian- American. They have experience in facilitation, community building, organizing, and program planning. Talya is a UMass Amherst alumni, with a BA in Journalism, African American Studies and French. They believe in centering community in every aspect of their life, and finding and highlighting moments of joy. Talya is passionate about creating and supporting space to be authentically “Blackity Black” and unapologetic about their identities.
Outside of working towards liberation and dismantling whiteness, they spend time managing their cat’s instagram, sneaking new plants into their apartment, and working on interior design projects for their friends. Pre-Covid you could find them at brunch, on picnics, and traveling.
Position: Inclusive Engagement Specialist
Email: tsogoba@collaborative.org
S. Clarke Bankert, MPH
Clarke Bankert (she/her/they/them) is the Senior Manager for Community Inclusion Strategies, and in this role she facilitates a variety of community-led processes to promote healthy communities, shift power to people most impacted by health inequities, and dismantle systems of oppression that concentrate power in the hands of the few. Prior to this role, she managed Healthy Hampshire for eight years and has worked in the field of public health for over a dozen years to create healthier communities by supporting community-led processes for change. She has been involved in all aspects of the change process, including assessment and data collection, program design, program implementation, evaluation and organizational capacity building. Through each of these elements, Clarke brings a passion for community-led efforts that center the voices and actions of people who experience the greatest burden of health inequities in our communities. Prior to her work at CES, Clarke was a Prevention Specialist with the Western Massachusetts Center for Healthy Communities, a program of Cooley Dickinson Hospital supporting regional public health efforts. While at the Center for Healthy Communities she conducted the first Community Health Needs Assessment for the hospital and provided technical assistance on community food systems to the Holyoke Food and Fitness Policy Council.
Position: Senior Manager, Community Inclusion Strategies
Email: cbankert@collaborative.org
Kristen Whitmore
Kristen Whitmore (she/they) is Special Projects Coordinator at the Collaborative for Educational Services. She works on the Healthy Hampshire initiative, which engages residents and partners in creating beautiful and nourished communities through collaborative, power-sharing processes aimed at systems change. Kristen is white, queer, and working class, and they spent the past 15 years learning and practicing community self-determination, food sovereignty, and liberation. They have worked with family farmers, food justice organizations, community coalitions, and students of all ages in New England and Latin America. Her work has included managing farmers markets, farm share programs, a Produce Prescription program, and a food hub; bookkeeping and grant writing for food businesses and organizations; conducting participatory, qualitative, and ethnographic research on food systems; teaching, facilitation, and mentorship in community and University settings; developing narrative strategies and communications tools; and community organizing to build the power of oppressed peoples. Kristen holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Gender Studies from Mount Holyoke College and a master’s degree in Regional Planning from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Kristen was raised in western Massachusetts by a family of farmers, food workers, and truck drivers. They love cooking, learning new things, and hanging out with their partner and two corgis.
Email: kwhitmore@collaborative.org