Current Projects

Overview:
Agriculture Careers Collaborative (ACC) is a stimulating and pioneering connection between high school students and teaching partners in agriculture. The program is constructed for students to explore careers in agriculture. ACC cultivates students by providing vision and creating a sense of purpose in their scholastic future to help them achieve their highest potential. The program offers a chance to develop eloquent correlations among the selected cohort of high school students and mentors with an agriculture background.

The program is designed to educate individuals in 10th-12th grade. The program will provide an independent experience of significance and worth to the individuals part of the program.

Mission:
The Mission of Agriculture Careers Collaborative is to provide experience in the various fields related to agriculture, offer mentorship, and teach a compelling curriculum to minorities in under-resourced schools.

Goals:

• To engage high schools in project-based concentration with interests related to agriculture
• To increase high school graduation rates in partner schools
• Provide a display of a diverse range of agriculture-related career pathways

This curriculum is a 6-8 weeks designed to introduce students to different facets of the agriculture industry. Students will gain knowledge on the history of agriculture, agriculture products and by-products, the future of agriculture, biotechnology in agriculture, and careers in agriculture. Instruction and student learning will occur throughout the lectures, group discussions, student projects, and the writing.

Vision Statement: Communities working together to eliminate health disparities and social determinants of health inequity. 

Mission Statement: To provide health disparities education and advocacy, build collaborative partnerships and develop best practice models with low-resourced communities and those who work with them to advance equity in health and well-being.  

Our Values: 

• Leadership: We listen and learn from our community. We approach the systemic causes of community problems and mobilize resources for the common good.  
• Equity: We endeavor for health equity, and focus primarily, but not exclusively, on vulnerable populations in the Metro Atlanta area. 
• Inclusiveness: We practice and champion inclusiveness in the community at large. We honor diverse strengths, needs, voices, and backgrounds of all members of the UHI and partnering communities. 
• Accountability: We serve as stewards for our community investments and honor the charitable intentions of donors to meet current and future research-based community-led needs. We are duty-bound to the highest standards of ethics, integrity, service, and fiduciary responsibility. 

Key Strategies and Objectives: 

1. Education: To train current and future health practitioners to serve in a socially complex world, better able to understand and cooperatively address the problems facing many of their patients/clients and the community at large.
2. Community Engagement: Strengthen the capacity and create a sustainable infrastructure of health and community systems to reduce health disparities and create an enabling environment for community health and well-being. 
3. Research: Develop and test culturally competent and community informed interventions that hold to the highest standards of excellence in community engagement and scholarly research. 

Overview

Circle of Safety is a cross-sector convening of more than 70 organizations and individuals working to prevent gun violence in Atlanta. We gather quarterly to connect, coordinate resources, and strengthen a robust community violence intervention (CVI) ecosystem. We are committed to building the political and community will for a comprehensive action plan that prioritizes a public health and community-based approach to preventing gun violence in Atlanta.

Circle of Safety was launched in 2023 by The IVYY Project at Grady to coordinate support for victims of gun violence as they move from the hospital into the community. Today, Circle of Safety is fiscally and operationally sponsored by the Urban Health Initiative at Emory University and guided by an Advisory Board that is forming to represent the membership. Jacquel Clemons Moore, MPH, chairs the Advisory Board.

Values

• Gun violence is a public health crisis that affects us all.
• We prioritize a public health approach to preventing gun violence; safety and wellbeing for people who have been injured; and re-investment in communities most impacted by gun violence.
• We believe in the power of community. Our communities are not the problem; they are the cure to the epidemic of gun violence we are experiencing.
• We intend to foster a sense of ownership and responsibility within the CVI ecosystem by encouraging collaboration and fellowship, among what is an already vibrant community of organizations addressing many different facets of violence interruption and prevention.
• No single solution will adequately address this collective problem. Through experience, we know that holistic, collaborative approaches work to prevent and stop the spread of gun violence.
• More people participating in solutions means safer communities.
• No one deserves violence.

Goals

• In 2024, Circle of Safety is focused on solidifying our structure and membership and expanding awareness among our members about Community Violence Intervention (CVI) and public health approaches to reducing gun violence.
• In 2025, Circle of Safety will build a consensus and a strategy to address gun violence as a collective. Specifically, we hope to create a Violence Reduction Strategic Plan for the metro Atlanta area through collaboration with ongoing violence prevention efforts as well as research, collection, and analysis of community violence data.

Contact

To join the Circle of Safety Mailing List, CLICK HERE

To join the Circle of Safety Google Group, CLICK HERE

For more information, please contact IVYY Director Jacquel Clemons Moore, MPH at jdclemons@gmh.edu.

GOAL:  To divert patients from using the Grady Emergency Department for dental-related concerns; To increase the number of Atlantans with a dental home by maximizing the presence of the HEALing Community Center’s highly skilled dental team in the community

Volunteer Needs: Hollis Innovation Academy Team Lead

Upcoming Plans:

• Outreach at Hollis Innovation, including content development for parents and teachers
• Train Grady Primary Care providers on conducting oral health screenings during primary care exams

Contact: Grace Buchloh

For detailed program information, click here.

Sprouting Readers©

• A garden-themed program for children primarily targeted toward children in K-2^nd grade.  Sprouting Readers© utilizes a multi-modal approach to fulfilling its mission to help children develop a love of learning, and knowledge about food and nutrition.  We have selected a number of age-appropriate books with a theme of gardening and related topics (weather, insects, etc.).  These books are read to the children (or we help them to read the books according to their ability).  In coordination with local school teachers, we have developed lessons that expand upon the topic of the selected book and incorporate STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) that the children are being taught in the public school system.  This is followed by a hands-on activity to further reinforce the learning from the book and the lesson.  Each child gets a copy of the selected book to take home and keep, and is encouraged to read the book to their parents/siblings. 

  For more information, contact Joan Wilson

Ag Careers Academy

• Under Development

GOAL: To engage students to graduate from high school through project-based learning with a focus on science and health care related issues by modeling a diverse range of health-related career pathways and empowering students to identify the most pressing health needs in their community and engage students in community-based health promotion activities.

Volunteers Needed: Students and Professionals in the following fields: Public Health, Medicine, Allied Health, and Physician Assistants.

Upcoming Plans:

• Develop virtual learning activities and tutoring sessions for our partner schools.
• Hold end of the year debriefs with volunteers and school leaders.

Contact:  Dr. Stacie Schmidt

GOAL: To partner and provide evidence-based programs that help reduce Georgia’s morbidity and mortality rates, focused on community needs and creating meaningful change.

Upcoming Plans:

• Maternal Blood Pressure Pilot
• Reproductive education and health literacy support
• Postpartum mental health projects

GOAL: Maintain communication and coordinate across projects by scheduling/attending meetings, detect operational gaps and inconsistencies, propose operational improvements, develop tool to track programs progress and develop reports as needed.

Volunteers Needed: Marketing Assistant, Administrative Assistant (student or professional interested in gaining experience in management)

Upcoming Plans:

• Expand partnerships and sponsors
• Increase awareness of UHI and participate in outreach activities
• Recruit future volunteers
• Develop additional projects

Contact:  Taqiyya Alford

Goal:

• Assist in providing basic health care to those experiencing housing insecurity and providing referrals to local safety net clinics.

Volunteer Needs: 

• Nursing and medical students to support basic health care events

Next Steps:

• Volunteers to support YMCA shuttle providing resources
• Nursing school community assessment of medical needs
• Coordination for health events
• Rolling suitcase and supply drives

Contact: Tammy Reasoner

GOAL: To provide Grady Hospital patients, employees, and Atlanta community members with information and advice about the dangers of smoking and vaping.

Volunteers Needed: Team members

Upcoming Plans:

• Collect and share information and strategies for tobacco use resistance.
• Promote success in quitting therapies via smoking cessation classes.
• Help evaluate success and needs for programs, ongoing.

Contact: Dr. Charles Moore

This initiative was established to address the lack of reliable, affordable transportation options for low-income residents in Northwest Atlanta. Transportation research was conducted, in collaboration with Northwest Atlanta low-resourced community residents and organizations such as the Center for Black Women's Wellness (CBWW), the Atlanta Healthy Start Initiative, the residents of Rolling Bends Apartment Community. This ministry engages community and faith-based organizations to contribute their staff and resources to provide residents affordable transportation to locations such as the grocery store, laundromat, healthcare clinics and social services offices. This avoids the need to pay "The Ride Man" (a neighbor with a car) upto $30 for a 30 minute "jog-shopping" grocery trip, in which product labels may not be read, and unit prices may not be compared.

GOAL: Learn to advocate for issues of equity.

Volunteer Needs:

• Project Coordinator- Assist in the development of a Laney Graduate School course on Interprofessional Education and Social Determinates of Health course
• Project Coordinator- Assist with Ethics and Advocacy webinar, Primary Care Advocacy Collaborations, Civility Discussions

Contact: Joan Wilson, Dr. Bill Sexson

GOAL: To provide a no cost walking program for anyone interested in living a healthier lifestyle.  Talk with medical professionals outside the office.

Volunteers Needed: Project coordinator and team members

Upcoming Plans:

• Promote Walk with a Doc activities to healthcare professionals who are interested in physical activity while sharing healthy ideas.
• Promote events to community members who would like the opportunity to talk with health care professionals in a casual environment.

Contact: Dr. Charles Moore