On Friday, July 21, 58 professionals from Amityville, Long Island to Austin, Texas convened in the MAC Rotunda at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn to experience a series of enlightening “Ahas!” at Finding Your Inner Leader: An “Aha!” Conference for Aspiring Community and Public Health Leaders.   They left satisfied and clamoring for more!  7 hours of CECHs for certified health education specialists were awarded to all CHES attendees.

Conference planning was spearheaded by Karen Denard Goldman, PhD, CHES of Kingsborough Community College’s Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation.  Dr. Goldman teaches Foundations of Health and Wellness and Human Sexuality, is co-author of Health Education Tools of the Trade: Tasks That Didn’t Come With the Job Description, is past president of the national Society for Public Health Education, a former board member of the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing, and a popular keynote speaker and trainer.

“It takes a whole campus,” Goldman noted, “to make campus-community partnerships work.  I am grateful for the top-notch professional support provided by my department chair, Sam Scherek, my faculty colleagues, and the Special Events, College Advancement, Custodial, Building Maintenance, the KCC web master, and Public Safety staff.  I particularly thank Amanda Hitchins of the Health Career Center and KCC students Chaya Goodman, Samira Mohammed, and Carlene Williams for their incredibly hard volunteer work before and during the conference.”

The campus itself was a major factor in the success of the conference.  Of all the participants, only a handful had ever been here before.   Summarizing the unanimous comments on the conference evaluations, keynote speaker Ms. Hernandez wrote the next day, “…, Kingsborough Community College was a great venue and I was totally impressed with the facility and campus.”

The conference was a great opportunity for KCC to strengthen its connections with community health leaders and organizations.  Sponsored jointly by the Greater New York Society for Public Health Education; Kingsborough Community College’s Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation; and the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President, the planning committee reached out to dynamic and compelling community leaders and leadership experts who inspired and educated the audience: Brooklyn Deputy Bough President Yvonne Graham; Paloma Izquierdo-Hernandez the CEO & President of Urban Health Plan; Richard Gitlin, director of The Gitlin Group, an organization and leadership development consulting resource; and Sana Reynolds, a managerial and cross-cultural communication consultant and adjunct associate professor of communication at Baruch College. 

At the lunchtime session, Conversations with Courageous Leaders, participants were able to ask specific, often blunt, and always very practical questions about leadership challenges, which were addressed openly and honestly by community health leaders Joyce Y. Hall, Executive Director, Federation of County Networks; Christobal Jacques, HIV Prevention Specialist, NYC Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene; Ngozi Moses, Founding Executive Director, Brooklyn Perinatal Network; and Maria Yomtov, (a KCC graduate), Director, Center for Community Health Promotion & Wellness, SUNY Downstate Medical Center.

Other organizations who helped promote the program were Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Greater Southern Brooklyn Health Coalition, Public Health Association of New York City, the VA New York Harbor Healthcare Systems and the NYC Department of Youth and Community Services. 

Watch this site for update conference information.  Questions, contact Karen Denard Goldman at kgoldman@kbcc.cuny.edu

Conference Participants	Conference Participants