Category: Latest News

Latest News

SEAHEC’s Healthy Farms CHWs Earn CPR Certification

  By ,

SEAHEC’s Healthy Farms community health worker (CHW) team earned their CPR certification in September, 2018. The  CHWs or promotores took the full CPR training with practice on dummies. They all passed the exam at the end of the course and received their certification. “It was a successful training!” reported SEAHEC Community Capacity Building Coordinator, Linda Cifuentes. She and Lauren Acosta NP, a Northern Arizona University faculty member, organized the training. Team members who took the training included Josefina Salazar, Yazaida Esquilin, Vanessa Valenzuela Castillo, Jesus Garcia, and Aida Dominguez. The training was conducted in Spanish by Jeffrey Osterhoudt, of Delta4 Medical. Mr. Osterhoudt is certified by the American Heart Association to teach CPR, and is a former Special Forces Medic. “Winchester Heights has the beginnings of pool of healthcare providers to help provide medical treatment in the 20 minutes or so it’ll take to respond by ambulance,” Mr. Osterhoudt commented on his Facebook Page.   Continue reading

SEAHEC and Friends Celebrate Inauguration of New Community Center

  By ,
Winchester Heights Playground

When she was five years old, Vanessa Valenzuela Castillo, a Willcox High School junior, stood by helplessly while her neighbors’ house burned down, killing two family members. This tragedy inspired her to join SEAHEC’s Healthy Farms community health worker team in Winchester Heights. The youngest member of the team, Vanessa dreams of a time when she and her neighbors will be equipped to prevent similar tragedies through increased knowledge and resources sufficient to prevent and respond to emergencies. On Saturday, August 18th, SEAHEC, partners and Winchester Heights residents celebrated the inauguration of the new Winchester Heights Community Center and the I “Heart” Children Burris Memorial Park. The community center will be a hub for recruitment and training of residents to address long-standing health and safety issues caused by lack of public infrastructure. It is part of a landmark public health initiative to model a rural development strategy with community health workers at its heart. SEAHEC has worked with the Winchester Heights community since 2008, when SEAHEC public health intern, Christy Trimmer Boland, M.P.H, published research that revealed egregious health disparities faced by farmworkers in the US. Winchester Heights is a community of approximately 600 people, the majority of whom are… Continue reading

FHL Club Expansion Provides Opportunities for Youth

  By ,
Ajo Students

SEAHEC’s Future Health Leaders Program expansions are providing new opportunities for Pima County students. Recently, SEAHEC signed an agreement with  Ajo High School, in Ajo, Arizona, a rural community southwest of Tucson, to operate a high school based health career club there.  During the year a total of 17 Ajo high school students were recruited as FHL members and the youth participating in the health career club received health career preparation activities including guest speakers, participation in health-related community projects, and touring of academic institutions to motivate them in their pursuit of future health careers, and assistance in the preparation of college applications and financial assistance. A summary of these activities includes: Recruitment and training of a High School staff member and a local community health center staff member to be on-site health career club facilitators. On November 1st, 16 students took their CPR and First Aid class with local fire fighters from Ajo Fire Department. On December 6th the Ajo FHL club had a Medical Technician as guest speaker During FALL semester, the 17 Ajo FHL student club members conducted a community food drive enabling them to provide food for meals for needy families for Thanksgiving. On January, 2018,… Continue reading

Tagged