CHW Academy Instructors
Daniel Adams
Instructor
Daniel Adams currently coordinates the Diabetes, Heart Disease, and Stroke Prevention Program and the Physical Activity and Nutrition Program at Southwest District Health. He also co-facilitates a community health coalition in Caldwell and has had the opportunity to support the efforts of Community Health Workers through the efforts of the coalition. He has experience teaching in the Department of Community and Public Health at Idaho State University, where he also completed his Masters in Health Education. He has developed skills as an educator both during his masters program and working in public schools to help train the public health workforce in Idaho. He believes that Community Health Workers play a pivotal role in supporting the work that so many community organizations are doing.
David Castro
Instructor
David Castro started as an educational aid in after-school programs and classrooms in Los Angeles, California. In this capacity he worked with low-income, first and second generation Latinx students that were struggling with school, and helped them navigate the school systems with their families to increase educational success. From there, he began working in Spokane, Washington, as a Youth Advocate for homeless youth and managed a job training program for a local nonprofit called Cup of Cool Water (Cup). He learned about barriers homeless youth face in navigating social services and the justice and education systems, especially among LGBTQIA+ and Native youth. In 2020, at the start of the pandemic, he joined the Spokane Regional Health District as a Community Health Worker where he helped with testing, vaccine clinics and getting relevant health information to Spokane’s Latino and homeless community in collaboration with The Native Project, an Urban Indian Health Clinic. He currently works at CHAS Health as a Community Health Worker Supervisor where he manages Community Health Workers that are Marshallese, Russian, Afghani and Community Health Workers that are based out of more rural areas like Latah and Lewiston, Idaho, and Deer Park, Washington.
Rose Cheff
Instructor
Rose Cheff has been a core individual in her community for many years and has been a CHW at the Challis Area Health Clinic for the past four years. She has expertise in navigating rural health systems, especially with underserved populations such as senior citizens and veterans, as well as those struggling with poverty and in domestic abuse situations. In her rural community she works as a bridge between her patients and insurance resources (including Medicaid and Medicare), and acts as a liaison between the Challis Area Health Clinic and the community.
Barbara Cleary
Instructor
Barbara Cleary began her community health career as a physical therapist in a university- affiliated county hospital and outpatient clinic in downtown San Antonio, Texas. In addition to her clinic duties, she was also a clinical instructor for physical therapy students and physical therapy assistant students. She then worked for Washington and Montana state public health departments, where she taught parenting classes, and in Washington, completed home visits with pregnant and parenting mothers, counseled individuals undergoing HIV testing and worked with families with handicapped children. After obtaining a nursing degree, she worked in two Montana schools as a nurse, where she taught health classes, set up health screenings, coordinated health education opportunities with local providers, and worked closely with school speech therapy and special education departments. She currently works for St. Mary's Health as a Community Worker, where she completes home visits, health screenings, and connects patients with needed resources based upon clinic health risk assessments. She believes that Community Health Workers are a valuable resource for patients.
Jennifer Cornie
Instructor
Jennifer Cornie has several years of experience in community health support. She worked as an Outreach Program Manager for Recovery in Motion where she provided crisis community outreach for people experiencing homelessness, substance abuse, and mental health issues. In that capacity she provided training, facilitated outreach programs, supported grants, and worked closely with the Idaho Department of Corrections. She currently works as the Alpine Alternatives Director of Safe and Sober Homes in the Twin Falls Area. She provides emergency safe and sober homes for women out of prison, as well as coordinates resources for the women including clothing, jobs, rental assistance, food boxes and life skills education.
Tessa Donaldson
Instructor
Tessa Donaldson has several years of experience collaborating in health education with a variety of stakeholders and partners including local schools, law enforcement, recovery and crisis centers, clinics, and community members. She has implemented health education programs in both rural and Native American communities, facilitated a suicide prevention community coalition, and coordinated related health projects and events throughout her region. Along with her community health experience, she worked as an instructor at BYU-Idaho for two years in the Exercise Physiology Lab. She currently works at Southeastern Idaho Public Health as a Senior Health Education Specialist.
Edwina French
Instructor
Edwina French has several years of community and public health experience starting with training teen instructors in the "Teens Against Tobacco" curriculum while employed with the American Lung Association. She also served as a caregiver at a memory care and assisted living facility where she worked with an often overlooked population that have a great need for education, prevention, and intervention. She currently works at the Family Caregiver Navigator program as an Intake Navigator to help family caregivers in urban and rural Idaho have access to the resources and support that they need to reduce stress and burnout. Along with her current work, she channels her passion into work as a research associate for the Center for the Study of Aging at Boise State University. Her work has opened partnerships with many community organizations and partners to connect caregivers to the resources they need. She has a passion for teaching and helping others discover their passions by adding creativity, innovation, and collaboration to teaching.
Charlye Hahn
Instructor
Charlye Hahn worked as a Youth Advocate for at-risk children in New Jersey for several years, connecting families to resources to support children remaining in original homes and communities. She has also been a Resource Peer Mentor for the foster community in Idaho, helping locate and refer families to community resources. She now works as a Kinship Resource Coordinator for the Area 3 Agency on Aging where she helps run a support group for Idaho Relatives to help locate, recruit, and list community resources for their kinship families. She is passionate about keeping health training available to provide resources to those that serve the health of Idaho communities. She is currently a co-trainer with FIRST for incoming foster families, and an instructor for Powerful Tools for Caregivers (PTC), and Fit and Fall Proof classes to ensure the safety of senior citizens. She enjoys teaching training that promotes health and safety.
Stephanie Hoffman
Instructor
Stephanie Hoffman is passionate about health education surrounding mental and behavioral health. She worked at MATCH (a non-profit program for children and their families) as a Family Coordinator, then Director, to provide outreach, education, intake, patient navigation and promotion to physicians and families. She has also volunteered with the Idaho Suicide Prevention Hotline as a responder, and NAMI Boise for the Ending the Silence and the In Our Own Voice programs. She spent eight years with the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, Division of Behavioral Health developing programs for Idaho citizens. Currently, she works as a Navigator with the Family Caregiver Navigator project that is part of the BSU Center for the Study of Aging and the Idaho Caregiver Alliance. Stephanie owns Family Support Partners and Training, LLC, where she developed a curriculum for Certified Family Support Partners, to certify adults with lived experience of raising a child with mental illness to help other families raising children who are living with mental illness. She is passionate about the valuable service that Community Health Workers provide to clinics, community health centers and more.
CHW Academy Staff
Sarah Hibbert Johnson, MPH
CHW Training Program Manager
Office: Reed Gym 301
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Ryan Lindsay, PhD, MPH
Project Co-Director
Office: 1311 E. Central Dr., Meridian, ID 83642
