I recently had the pleasure of participating in the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce's Leadership Center Program. A 10 month program where professionals learn about all topics relating to being a good leader! As part of the program, our class was divided into groups. Our group consisted of myself, Jessica Teta, United Way of Greater New Haven, Alex Cinotti, East Shore Health District, Julissa Rodriquez, Neighbor Works New Horizons, Tarja-Canon Bryant, People's United Bank, and Rachele Ceccorulli, Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce. We were charged with the task of conducting a sustainable project which targets a specific community issue. Our group’s topic was childhood obesity.

Our group decided to work with one of New Haven’s  Boost! schools, Wexler Grant Community School, to plan their annual field day. We had identified the national health and wellness initiative "Let's Move", a comprehensive initiative, launched by First Lady Michelle Obama dedicated to solving the problem of childhood obesity in a generation so that kids born today will grow up healthier and able to pursue their dreams. The initiative focuses on four strategies:  giving parents helpful information and fostering environments that support healthy choices, providing healthier foods in our schools, ensuring that every community has access to healthy, affordable food, helping kids become more physically active* (www.letsmove.gov). Our group’s focus here is the later of the four, helping kids be active and stay active.

Asking the poorest people in our state to pay for prescriptions doesn't work.  We know this in CT from first-hand experience.  We know it from the research that has been done in the field.  But Governor Malloy's current budget includes Medicaid recipients paying co-pays for prescriptions and doctors' appointments. $1.50 seems like an impossibly small amount of money to ask someone to pay for a prescription, and for most of us it seems hard to believe that this is either an unreasonable policy or a barrier to care.

I started at the West Haven Child Development Center as an intern in the spring of 2009. I was hired as a infant/toddler substitute teacher there in September 2009 and since then, my job has evolved to social work assistant and development personnel as well. However, as is the case with any non-profit, we have to be flexible in our day to day activities and willing to fill in wherever needed. In addition to my work at WHCDC, I also run a non-profit children's organization called Connecticut Partnership for Children, Inc.