Portfolio

What has grown from the model

Each program below started with assets that already existed in a community or institution. Each card shows the challenge, what we built on, what happened, and the value it created.

Education and youth

Health Professions Affinity Community (HPAC)

The challenge: Young people from under-resourced urban and rural communities are underrepresented in the health professions and rarely treated as leaders in their own communities.
The assets: Students' own strengths and lived experience, schools, families, local organizations, and health professionals willing to mentor.
The outcome: Since 2011, more than 10,000 young people across Ohio have completed HPAC-model community health projects on issues such as human trafficking, opioid addiction, homelessness, heart disease, food deserts, and mental health. Participating students showed statistically significant gains in motivation, self-management, and positive social connection.
Institutional value: Partner institutions gain stronger connections to their communities and the trust needed for research that benefits underrepresented communities.

Explore HPAC

Health systems

Community Health Worker model at University Hospitals

The challenge: Patients facing social determinants of health were relying on emergency care that did not address the causes.
The outcome: In a six-month pilot, more than 3,000 people were reached by a community health worker, 1,500 took part in health education, 986 referrals were made, and ongoing contact continued with 58 high utilizers.
Institutional value: The pilot helped University Hospitals avoid CMS penalties, increase primary care visits, and lower emergency department use, and led to funding for community health workers across the system.

Workforce

NEO Community Health Worker Program

The work: Designed and launched a community health worker certification program in 2015, with a statewide e-commons for practitioners.
The outcome: More than 200 community health workers were certified during the program's operation.

Health equity

Citizenship Health Learning Management System for the State of Ohio

The challenge: Health care providers needed training on structural racism and health equity that changed attitudes, not just knowledge.
The work: A learning system built from original research and a novel journey map, with built-in empathy and social determinants of health scales and the Harvard Implicit Association Test. Funded by the Government Resource Center and First Year Cleveland.
The outcome: Beta testing showed statistically significant changes across all three domains. The full report is available on request.

Health equity

Infant mortality and unconscious bias research

The work: Lead researcher on Cleveland's first study of how health care professionals' unconscious bias affects infant mortality, working with University Hospitals and MetroHealth, with augmented and virtual reality training modules for clinical education.
Status: Presented nationally; publication in preparation.

Pathways

BA/MD pathway leadership

The work: As a National Sullivan Alliance Scholar and National BA/MD Research Chair with an AAMC affiliate group, helped renew a 21st century approach to bringing underrepresented students into medicine.
The outcome: National support for this shared vision across more than 15 medical schools and their communities.
Institutional value: A larger and more diverse applicant pool, and greater resilience for underrepresented communities.

Statewide systems

Ohio Public Health Ecosystem

The work: Designed the ecosystem and co-wrote the CDC and AmeriCorps proposal with The Ohio State University and OSU Extension, serving as Co-PI. The HPAC model ran statewide through the Extension and 4-H network.
Status: 2021 to 2025; ended early when the federal contract was cancelled. Students shared their projects at formal poster events across the state.

Community safety

Renounce Denounce research and analytics

The work: As Director of Strategic Planning, Innovation and Analytics and a board member, supports RDGIP's strategic plan, evaluation, and funding, and developed the Composite Risk System, conflict mapping practice, and a community violence intervention training standard.
A note on methods: These analytic tools are proprietary and are used by RDGIP under agreement. This site describes what they measure, not how.

Measuring what matters

Capacity building

Building community organizations

The work: Extensive organizational build-out, strategy, evaluation, and grant development for TYWIST, Comité Mexicano, and the Northeast Ohio Association of Hispanic Health, often while serving on their boards.

Education innovation

Self-organized learning and new school models

The work: Published research on the effectiveness of self-organized learning environments in the classroom, and conducted the first evaluation of the MC2 STEM High School model.

Read the research

Arts and learning

Arts for Learning national evaluation

The work: Led the Cleveland team for the Young Audiences Arts for Learning national evaluation, observing arts-integrated lessons with Cleveland students, assessing outcomes, and running focus groups and interviews.

Youth leadership

Teens Networking Together

The work: Founded in 1990 on the West Side of St. Paul, Minnesota, along with Youth Vote Minnesota. Young people were trained in participatory action research, grant writing, evaluation, and leadership.
The outcome: Teens Networking Together is still youth-led more than thirty years later.

Community safety

Rooted and Rising: RDGIP life workbooks

The work: Fourteen short workbooks for Renounce Denounce participants ages 16 to 24, from "All About Me" and "Where We Live Shapes Our Health" to "Money Smart," "Lead the Way" and "Looking Ahead." Each takes 30 to 45 minutes, earns a badge, and badges unlock levels: Rooted, Growing, Branching Out, Standing Tall.
The frameworks: Built on the Asset-Based Paradigm and the CIRCLE model, used by RDGIP under license.

Evaluation

Cleveland Thrive CVI partnership evaluation

The work: Evaluation lead for a 2026 community violence intervention partnership between Renounce Denounce and TYWIST in Glenville and Mt. Pleasant: outputs, outcomes, commitments met, and a social return model.
The outcome: Seventy-three young adults served across more than 1,000 sessions, and an estimated five dollars of societal value for each dollar invested. The model's weights are proprietary; the report shares the results.

Recent evaluation work

Workforce

Citizenship Health CHW Academy

The work: One community health worker training program built to Ohio's standard curriculum, with five pathways and 55 modules, each with a deck, handout, tests and facilitator guide.
Status: Board approval application in preparation. Pathway C lets HPAC students complete the curriculum in high school.

See the Academy

Leadership

Leadership Foundations and AI for Neighborhood Leaders

The work: A ten-session leadership series and a five-session AI series for Neighborhood Leadership Cleveland participants, with a companion resource hub for Class 43.

Sample decks

Women and families

Florence Matthews Women's Center

The work: Site design, program design and a partner packet for a new women's center opening in 2027, including a resource navigator that covers 79 Cuyahoga County communities and a Career Comeback Toolkit.
Status: Opening planned for January 2027. The Center is an independent organization.

Innovation

Doctor at Your Door

The work: The most recent program built on the Citizenship Health model.

Full reports for many of these programs are available on request. Partner organizations are independent; descriptions here cover the work the Citizenship Health Institute contributed.