We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kristin Bennett a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kristin , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

Communities for Better Health (CFBH) takes a different approach to community health and community public health. The key pillars of our work include: innovation, collaboration, and sustainability. ● Collaboration– We recognize that communities are networks of individuals with common goals, and that each community has its own pulse and priorities. Our goal is to foster genuine relationships among each community that we serve and with the organizations that serve them in order to understand and address the health priorities of the people who live, play, and work within each.
● Innovation– We specialize in the unconventional. The traditional model dictates that once a problem has been identified, a solution is chosen from the hat to apply to the problem, and then it is brought to the community for implementation. At CFBH, we see a problem and we look to those impacted by the issue to guide the intervention that works best for them. We work backwards to push the needle forward.
● Sustainability– For any intervention to have long-term impact, there must be community buy-in and strong infrastructure to support longevity. CFBH helps build the capacity of new and existing grassroots efforts, which results in programs that are hardwired into the community.

We value our approach to work alongside communities to mobilize and address health issues, not just working at them.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Communities for Better Health (CFBH) was founded in October 2018 out of my passion to work alongside communities to implement their solutions to establish healthy sustainable communities. I created an organization that meets communities where they are to implement the strategies they have identified to address their own health issues. Our organization sits at the table with the community to understand their health-related issues and works with them to implement community-driven solutions.

I have always had a passion for serving other and working towards helping individuals and communities achieve healthy lifestyles. I first got started in community-based work during my undergraduate program at the University of Houston where I got my degree in Public Health. Shortly after graduation, I began working in the field mostly around building communities capacity to address substance abuse and misuse. During my work experience, I quickly realized that communities were in need of much more than 1 health intervention and health education.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

The initial capital for CFBH was started with a little money I had in my savings account. I have always been a firm believer of “just do it”, so I did. After about 1 year in operations, specifically supporting the Acres Homes Health Action Team, CFBH received our first grant from the Episcopal Health Foundation in Houston, TX.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Implementing community health initiatives can be a very long process. If you think about it, improving health outcomes and changing health behaviors of entire groups of people, especially groups that have historically been disenfranchised takes a very long time. Because of this, it can be challenging to show impact in a short amount of time which makes securing funding and ongoing uphill battle. Even though there have been times in our business that we weren’t sure if we would get the next grant to continue our work, the work never stopped. We have been able to continue and even expand our programming even despite the challenges. The reason why the work continues is a direct reflection of the team’s grit to continue to serve our communities.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cfbhhouston.org
• Instagram: @acreshomesmarket
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CommunitiesforBetterHealth
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/communities-for-better-health