Spotlight: Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital’s Community Health and Wellness Team

Through June 12, we’re celebrating Community Health Improvement Week. It’s an opportunity to shine a light on the work done by Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital’s Community Health and Wellness team.

Led by BWFH’s Director of Community Health and Wellness Tracy Sylven, CHHC, MCHES, the Community Health and Wellness team is on a mission to:

• evaluate the health status of service area neighborhoods of West Roxbury, Roslindale, Hyde Park and Jamaica Plain and respond to identified needs.
• pay particular attention to health and wellness concerns affecting children in local schools, the elderly, women, and diverse populations who may experience health disparities, among others.
• provide a wide variety of free health screenings and health education programs, and other services relating to important health issues affecting communities served.
• seek community participation in and feedback about our community benefits efforts, by involving community members in the hospital’s planning and evaluation processes and by keeping the lines of communication open.
• engage in meaningful, active collaboration with a broad range of community residents, schools, service organizations, businesses, government agencies and others, to stay abreast of community needs, and to pool knowledge and resources in addressing those needs.
• periodically review and assess community benefits goals, services, and outcomes to ensure that they remain relevant to issues affecting our communities, and to allocate or reallocate community benefits resources, as needed.

Together with Community Health Coordinator Katie Plante, Sylven’s work includes partnering with local organizations to tackling food insecurity, health inequality and more. She and Plante can be found on the ground in the many of Boston’s most underserved neighborhoods. During the COVID-19 pandemic, their work has been crucial to the health and well-being of communities hardest hit. They have provided COVID-19 testing, supplies like masks and hand sanitizer and information about vaccination.

Our communities are better thanks to the Community Health and Wellness team’s hard work!