We recently connected with Jaynell Assmann and have shared our conversation below.
Jaynell, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.
Starting a non-profit is very time consuming and requires a great deal of support from the community. When I first started Care Beyond the Boulevard, I did not envision it being where it is today. There were several key challenges, one being lack of support from the medical community at large and the second being getting opinions from people who have never done something similar on how it should be done. My advice to someone considering starting their own practice or non profit, is to lean on those who have been there before, do not be afraid of your vision and know that all of your plans will likely change.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I founded CBB in 2016, with a desire to bring healthcare to those living on the streets. This was born out of serving at a food and clothing ministry in Kansas City and noticing people continually coming up for help with medical related concerns. I vowed to start a clinic in that ministry that would provide a link to services and basic healthcare to those at great risk for health problems and poor access to healthcare. Under my leadership, CBB has grown from one clinic weekly to multiple clinics, serving thousands every year. CBB has over 200 volunteers and eight full-time employees, several contract employees and two part-time staff, we partner with multiple agencies throughout the metro area and continues to keep the patient at the core of the mission.
This year, CBB and Kansas City will host the 20th annual International Street Medicine Symposium, a dream I have had since attending my first symposium prior to starting CBB. This is an amazing accomplishment for me personally, the organization and the city.
If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?
I would, however, I would have become a nurse practitioner earlier in my career. I became a nurse in 1992, and not until 2016 did I become a Family Nurse Practitioner.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
My reputation is solid because of my integrity and my commitment to my patients. I am also very much involved in the day to day operations of the organization and will not ask staff or volunteers to do anything that I would not do myself. I consistently say that we need to keep the patients as our true North, but I do more than say that, I live that.
Patients, volunteers, staff, and the community see my consistency, my commitment to the community, and my integrity, which helps to solidify my reputation.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.carebeyondtheboulevard.org
- Instagram: carebeyondtheboulevard
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carebeyondtheboulevard
- Twitter: @CBBStreetMed
Image Credits
Darrin Dressler