Be a Neighbor First

Lisa Gale Hadden is Executive Director of a Michigan Area Health Education Center, housed within the College of Medicine at Central Michigan University, and serves as a faculty member of the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute, Northwestern University. The former President and CEO of Healthy Community Partners, she has worked as a community organizer and was the Project Director for Healthy Futures, which supported access to health care for the homeless and uninsured. There she created a network of free, street clinics staffed by volunteer physicians, family nurse practitioners and nurses. A notable feature of the Healthy Futures program was its community service coordination provided by residents hired from the neighborhoods to navigate patients through all aspects of health care and non-medical community resources.