SGCMH Community Outreach Coordinator Receives new Certification
4/10/2024
Ste. Genevieve, MO - Ste. Genevieve County Memorial Hospital’s Community Outreach coordinator, Mary Bleckler, just completed a 16-week program and received her Community Health Worker (CHW) credentials.
The hospital received a grant that enabled Bleckler to attend the program from St. Louis Community College at Forest Park that included 120-plus classroom hours and 60 service learning hours.
Bleckler with her new credentials, CHW-credentialed, said the course covered health disparities, health equity, and different ways we can help our community be healthier.
“Taking this course gave me some new insight into some things we can do in our community,” she said. “There’s going to be a big push on education. How we can educate the community on reducing behavioral risk factors, living a healthier life, and reducing chronic health conditions. There’s a host of programs that we can do that will focus on diet and exercise.”
Bleckler said people may have an idea of what they should be eating or that they should be exercising, but sometimes it’s not a matter of just knowing.
“Food insecurity might be an issue,” she said. “Not everybody has the same access to healthy food, healthcare or getting out and exercising. So it’s a matter of meeting people where they are. We’re working in the background trying to come up with programs that will help eliminate some of those issues for people and make some positive changes.”
Mary Bleckler said the course was very interesting and she’s anxious to put some of the principles she learned into practice for the health of the Ste. Genevieve community.
Ste. Genevieve County Memorial Hospital is a nonprofit county owned community hospital that works to continue to improve the health and well-being of the community. Our professional staff uses advanced technology and medicine to provide excellent, personalized, and compassionate healthcare. For more information on Ste. Genevieve County Memorial Hospital, visit stegenevievehospital.org.
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