HCC program gives homeless students a second chance
Mar 13, 2015
Residents at Angela House, a facility with a mission to successfully transition women into society after incarceration, greet House Manager Cheraline Canida with hugs.
“This place runs on second chances,” said Canida, who is known to the women as Shea. “I now get to be a part of assisting others who are learning how to live on life's terms without the use of drugs or alcohol. I too have been given a second chance through a program at Houston Community College and it has changed my life.”
Her second chance came from HCC Navigating Houston’s Homeless, a grant-funded project launched in 2013 and made possible by the Creekmore & Adele Fath Charitable Foundation. The Center for Healthcare Professionals and the Community Health Worker Program within the Human Service Technology Program at Coleman College for Health Sciences manage the project. The goal is to help men and women become community health workers by providing them tuition, instructional expenses and financial support as they begin their educational journey.
“This project really is a unique opportunity for students to find a way out of homelessness by creating a new career in service to the community as a Community Health Worker,” said Kirk White, director of the Center for Healthcare Professionals. “The project would not succeed without the dedication of the HCC faculty, the support from our community partner organizations, and the determination of our students.”
Shea is a true success story. As a graduate of the first student cohort of the project, she is working at Angela House, the place where she completed her practicum and is a role model who exhibits self-sufficiency and gives back to a community that desperately needs people like her to encourage and enable individuals to exit from homelessness as they attain self-sufficiency.
“Education and collaboration promote success,” said Marion Scott, Human Services Technology Adjunct Faculty at Coleman College for Health Sciences Community Health Worker Certification Program. “The students and the collaborative partnerships developed through this project must receive credit for the program’s success.”
The college recently hosted a completion ceremony for the second cohort of nine students who finished the basic series of courses to prepare them for state certification. They will go through their practicum in the summer. Six of the students have been funded by the Creekmore & Adele Fath Charitable Foundation grant-funded project through the HCC Foundation, which plans on seeking additional funding sources to grow the project in the future.
Of the 20 grant recipients who initially enrolled in the program, 18 students completed the program in May 2014, and of these students, 50 percent are now employed.
“My mom always told me I was going to be special and help others,” Canida said. “She believes all the stuff I went through helped me get to where I am today.”
For more information on the Community Health Worker program at Coleman College for Health Sciences, go to coleman.hccs.edu.