Intern perspective: What is CHEER’s most exciting new program?

This last semester CHEER has been host to an intern from the University of Maryland, Chris Maddox. He has been very helpful working specifically in our health programs. We asked Chris to give some perspective on a CHEER program for which he is most excited. The following is his response.

As a new intern at CHEER I have had many interesting experiences, such as meeting people from the Primary Care Coalition and reading sensitive documents. However, my most interesting experience I have had so far is the Healthy Long Branch (HLB) meeting.

“With the backing of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s 100 million healthier lives campaign, Healthy Long Branch (HLB) plans to address systemic problems that affect the health and well-being of everyone in the Long Branch and Takoma Park community. HLB’s partners are anyone who works at the community-level, from the Long Brach Business League to MobileMed. Through collaboration, shared measures of progress, advocacy and coordinated activities, HLB and its partners will address improve health and well-being by focusing on four key areas:

1. Health

2. The Built Environment/Where we Live

3. Economic Opportunity

4. Community Engagement

For each of the four key areas, HLB developed workgroups that will meet regularly to coordinate activities and collaborate.

This is truly an amazing time for Long Brach, due to the uniqueness of HLB. HLB will be the first community-wide collaborative organization that will link the community to its resources and improvement our community’s health by changing the way we communicate. HLB uses a community-driven process, residents will play an integral role in the development and evaluation of HLB programs and will have many opportunities to develop both professionally, personally and as a community.