People
PHI is home to more than 100 project directors and principal investigators that are leading innovative public health projects and programs. Here are the biographies of two of these leaders.
Internship Program
Designed to foster opportunities for public health professionals of the future, PHI has developed an internship program for the summer of 2010. The program aims to provide interns with a structured learning environment that will enhance their education with practical experience. Click here to meet them.
Connie Chan Robison, MPH
DirectorCenter for Collaborative Planning
Connie Chan Robison is executive director of the Center for Collaborative Planning (CCP). The center advocates for health and social justice through work in community building, leadership development and grassroots advocacy.
Motivated by a desire to spur social change, Chan Robison uses her community engagement experiences and public health training to support diverse organizations and communities to achieve lasting community change.
Before joining CCP, Chan Robison worked as a community health educator at Kaiser Permanente and also at the county public health level and in the nonprofit sector, where she developed a deep understanding of the social factors that determine health.
"A lot of the experiences and perspectives that I bring (to CCP) are based on a broad definition of health—which includes health equity and social justice," says Chan Robison. "Such considerations expand our understanding of the social and environmental influences that impact health and raise important questions, like: 'What does poverty have to do with health?'"
Believing that communities hold the answers to their particular challenges, CCP helps communities mobilize their resources to achieve positive social change.
"It's not one size fits all," explains Chan Robison. "It's about figuring out how to leverage the assets and wisdom to find and implement solutions that help create healthy communities."
Currently, CCP is working with Sacramento County Alcohol and Drug Services on community-based prevention to decrease youth alcohol and substance abuse. CCP is providing technical assistance and training to two Sacramento communities to help them create locally based prevention projects that build community among youth and adults.
This year CCP celebrates the 15th anniversary of Women's Health Leadership (WHL), a program that focuses on strengthening the leadership capacity of women health leaders across California. Since 1994, WHL has graduated more than 350 women, cultivating a statewide network of emerging grassroots leaders dedicated to addressing health and social justice issues.
"Too often, our communities are barraged by stories and examples of what's not working, which has consequences on how our youth, families and communities view our ability to make change," says Chan Robison. "If we can also focus our attention on what's working, we have the potential to leverage those assets and strengths to amplify our impact."
To learn more about CCP, visit our Programs page.
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