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Volunteers Making A Difference

Promotores de Salud Program: Outreach & Organizing for Community Health

by Lolly Belanger

Whether they are helping a distraught family get their utilities turned back on, urging a fellow resident at the local homeless shelter to go for a free blood test, or advocating for more after-school programs for teens in their neighborhood, the Santa Cruz Women’s Health Center promotores de salud serve as a vital link to members of their communities by helping them navigate the often-complex health and social services systems. The knowledge base of this group of dedicated volunteers is broad, running the gamut from breast cancer screening to food stamp assistance to HIV prevention to hospice care and beyond.

Now in its third year, the Promotores de Salud program started with a two-year grant from the Tides Foundation Community Clinics Initiative in 2008. It began as a partnership between the Women’s Health Center and the Live Oak Family Resource Center, Mountain Community Resources and the Familia Center, three family resource centers. Program funding was renewed in 2010, and the Diabetes Health Center was added as a fourth partner.

Women’s Health Center staff member Sandra Wiley coordinates the program. She organizes ongoing training sessions, distributes information about available resources and oversees the all-important data tracking. Before joining the clinic, Sandra gained experience as a community organizer by helping grow the Mountain Community Resources parents group from a small gathering of stay-at-home-moms like herself to a 250+ family collective. She also worked for a time at the Live Oak Resource Center, where she conducted childbirth education classes in Spanish.

One key area of outreach done by the promotores involves diabetes prevention and management, which is a huge concern for health advocates throughout Santa Cruz County. “For some people, the only way they get blood glucose testing is by attending the monthly testings offered at the Mountain Community Resource Center, the Familia Center and the Live Oak Resource Center,” says Sandra. “This testing program started in part because the promotores saw a critical need in the community for this service.” Because the centers couldn’t offer glucose testing unless there was someone on staff who was licensed, the Women’s Health Center partnered with representatives from the Diabetes Health Center to make this service available. “Ideally, these people should be testing every day," says Sandra “But if it wasn’t for the promotores making the connection, they probably wouldn’t be testing at all.”

Individuals served through the promotores program are often grappling with homelessness and other social and economic barriers. Challenges of language, literacy, poverty, and discrimination are issues that many of the promotores themselves are working to overcome. It is this very aspect of the program that makes it so successful and has resulted in what Sandra sees as one of the most positive outcomes.

“Leadership development is key,” she says. “I love the idea of people actually becoming so passionate about something they believe in that they're willing to stick their necks out. I see the courage that it takes. They are truly inspirational.” And it is not just Sandra who recognizes this transformation. Two of the promotores were invited to join the Mountain Community Resource Center Board and the Community Action Board, while a third was asked to speak about her experience with the educational system at a community organizing event where national policy members were part of the 800-person audience.

Asked about her wishes for the future of the program, Sandra’s answer is succinct. “I would love to see it funded again next year. I would love to see the promotores become more politically active, and I would love to see policy changes that will level the playing field for all of the disenfranchised people in our communities.”

For more information on becoming a volunteer promotora, please contact one of these organizations: Familia Center (Narciso de Leon) at 423-5747; Mountain Community Resources (Romina Cervantes) at 335-6607; or Live Oak Family Resources (Erika Hernandez) at 476-7284 ext. 109.

Pictured: Erika Hernandez (Community Support Specialist for Live Oak Family Resource Center) and Marcela (Promotora) at the Carnival of Good Health for Kids at Shoreline Middle school on September 18, 2011. The event was sponsored by Dominican Hospital, Dominican Medical Foundation, and Physicians Medical Group.
Photo by: Sienne Hayes

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Updated September 29, 2011