What is your favorite indoor/outdoor activity?

• I enjoy practicing yoga, hiking, and fishing.

 
If you could be any fictional character, who would you choose?

• Mr. Blandings (Cary Grant) from the classical movie, "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream Home." I love old classical movies especially anything Cary Grant is in...

What is your favorite thing about living in Texas?

• The Texas Hill Country, the bluebonnets and wildflowers in the spring.

 
What is one thing about you that surprises people?

• That I lived in a haunted house as a child.

Why do you care about increasing access to care for Ag workers & their families?

• I became interested in the non-profit sector in 2000 after spending 20 years working in the for profit industry by doing finance and auditing work. I enjoy helping people and working in finance, so I decided to volunteer more and get involved in community work. In doing so, I discovered many areas and people that need help, including the populations that are the most vulnerable which have a personal connection to me. I've learned to adapt a lot in this current journey of mine, but I know I play a small role in the part of a bigger picture of increasing care to Ag workers and their families.

Read Eric’s bio here

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• Campaign Informational Slides - Educate others about the Campaign with this informational Power Point presentation. (Speaker notes included)
• Board Resolution Template - Solidify your health center's commitment to increasing access to care for Ag workers.
• Memorandum of Understanding Template - Use this tool as you forge local/regional interagency collaborations to increase access to care.

 
Thank you to the Ag Worker Access 2020 Campaign Task Force Learning Collaborative for providing input and feedback toward development of these tools.

What is your favorite indoor/outdoor activity?

• I enjoy watching movies with my family, singing karaoke & gardening. I have a large fig tree in my yard that I am currently harvesting figs from.

​If you could be any fictional character, who would you choose?

• Selene from Underworld!

What is your favorite thing about living in Texas?

• It’s the place where most of my family is and I love that Texas is it’s own country!  If you talk about Texas to someone not from the U.S., they know about Texas!

 
What is one thing about you that surprises people?

• That I work in Finance & Administration and yet I am pretty outgoing. It’s not all about the numbers! I like people. I like performing.

Why do you care about increasing access to care for Ag workers & their families?

• For those who grow and harvest our food, it makes no sense for them to not have health care and be taken care of. Our nation is the “land of plenty” and even though things are not perfect, we should take care of those people who are taking care of us! I appreciate the sacrifices and hard work that Ag Workers and their families make doing this work. They are taking care of us by growing and harvesting our food! The least we can do is take care of them. Treat others like you would like to be treated. This is why I care about increasing access for Ag Workers and their families. It’s the right thing to do.

Read Susan’s bio here

Background
The Increase Access to Care for Ag Workers (IAC) program is a learning collaborative that goes hand in hand with the Ag Worker Access 2020 Campaign, a national initiative launched in 2015 to increase access to quality healthcare for America’s Agricultural workers and their families.  At the time of the Campaign’s launch, health centers were seeing a decrease in the number of Ag Workers being served and not keeping pace with the increases in 330g (Migrant Health) funding.  Health Center staff and other advocates knew that more could be done to increase access to quality care for Ag Workers and their families – The result was the Ag Worker Access 2020 Campaign.
 
About the Program
The IAC Program was designed to assist health centers in accurately identifying, registering and reporting their patients….We know that Ag workers are being served, but are not always asked the right questions and, therefore, often not identified as Ag workers.
 
Through this program, consisting of training, quarterly network calls, and support, NCFH has been able to help health centers modify their current systems and registration processes to demonstrate their effectiveness.  As a result, participating heath center patient registration teams are implementing the steps necessary to identify and accurately report Ag workers when they register.
 
In addition to participation in training sessions and quarterly calls, these health centers also provide their UDS information to NCFH twice a year; the purpose of this is to help us track and measure the outcomes of the changes being implemented as part of the Program.
 
Learning Collaborative Participation
Our Program members include Primary Care Associations (PCAs), Health Care Controlled Networks (HCCNs), and Health Centers (HCs).  Our common goal for the Increase Access to Care Program is to continue to increase access to care for Agriculture workers in their service areas through sharing of knowledge, tools, and resources.  In our work, as in most industries, time is limited, and we truly believe that by being sources of information for each other and sharing what has worked in accomplishing our goals, we can all be successful. 
 
Are you interested in joining the IAC Learning Collaborative?  Contact us!