At Health Resources in Action we believe that advancing health equity requires challenging our core assumptions, authentically engaging with communities and populations most impacted by health inequity, and building community power to influence how policies and resource decisions are made.
Engagement for Equity is a resource designed to support the public health community and government officials in seeing community engagement practice as core to its identity – not simply a tactic or activity that comes and goes. Put differently, we need to transform our approach to community engagement.
Engagement for Equity resources and tools are built on the foundation of a systems change framework1, an approach HRiA has successfully used to drive our internal practices and in capacity building work with our partners. This approach centers the idea that challenging our assumptions (mental models) are key to transformative change.
Contact us to talk about how HRiA can support your community engagement efforts.
1Image adapted from The Water of Systems Change (2018) by FSG
Meet the Team
is the Senior Director of Community Engagement on the Health and Racial Equity team at HRiA.
In his role at HRiA, Mo facilitates processes, delivers training, provides technical assistance and other capacity-building services, and participates in feld-building initiatives. As a trainer, Mo builds the skills of participants while keeping connections to theory. For over 20 years, Mo has worked to establish youth development practices in organizations serving the full range of children and youth in varied settings including school and afterschool programs, employment and training programs, juvenile justice, emerging adult, and adult correction programs, human and social service programs, and others. Mo works also at the nexus of community safety and youth development, using a public health approach to address violence, and a developmental approach in juvenile justice and reform.
is an Associate Director of Community Impact on the Health and Racial Equity team at HRiA.
In her role, she collaborates with public and private partners to bolster community influence in neighborhood, municipal, and state level decision-making. Most recently, Erika led HRiA’s advocacy efforts to support Massachusetts community groups, residents, and local governments in the equitable distribution of funds through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). With deep roots in youth advocacy, participatory research, and equitable evaluation, she has co-led significant assessment and evaluation projects nationwide, including the first city-wide community health assessment for the city of Boston–which engaged over 100 community organizations and 2,500 residents using a participatory approach.
is an Associate Director on the Health and Racial Equity team at HRiA.
In this role, she provides technical assistance and capacity building to clients, partners, and collaborators on transforming public health systems with a health and racial equity lens. Kate also brings over a decade of designing, planning, and facilitating in-person and virtual learning experiences, including webinars, asynchronous training series, train the trainer programs, conferences, and summits. In 2023, she co-led HRiA’s team in conceptualizing, planning, and coordinating Catalyze: A Race and Health Equity Summit, a multi-day, national convening of more than 500 partners hosted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
is the Senior Director of Policy and Practice on the Health and Racial Equity team at HRiA.
In his role, he supports communities, local and state governments, foundations and others in shifting the narrative of what public health and health care systems prioritize for action with an emphasis on solutions that impact the root causes of health and racial inequities. This work is inclusive of capacity building and direct technical assistance and includes activities such as assessing organizational practices, helping orient programmatic efforts towards policy, systems and environmental changes initiatives and supporting community engagement practices. Prior to joining HRiA, Ben was the Director of the Division of Community Health Planning and Engagement for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH).
