Tagged With "Buncombe"

Robert Simmons, on left. _________________________ Robert Simmons had been working with incarcerated men since 1998 and thought he’d seen everything. But in 2010, he met a grandfather, a father and a grandson—all of them inmates at Buncombe County’s Craggy Correctional Center. “I saw how things are passed down from one generation to the next. That was a wake-up call for me,” says Simmons. And it underscored his resolve to help thwart that cycle. For years, Simmons had been volunteering at...

On February 22, Dr. Josh Gettinger (Family Medicine doctor & Faculty with MAHEC Family Medicine Residency) along with Melissa Baker (Director of Community Population Health at MAHEC) gave a presentation to a group of retired individuals about the science of ACEs. This was part of Hermann Gucinski's class at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNC Asheville campus. "The Best Science Changes the Way We See the World" ... this was the title of the first slide, over an image of the...

Asheville and Buncombe County’s Agenda for People with Disabilities

Buncombe hosts Mia Birdsong, national speaker on inequality, race, gender and community ASHEVILLE - Mia Birdsong travels the U.S. to challenge assumptions people have about poverty and family. She will speak at the Diana Wortham Theatre at 6 p.m. April 25. The public is invited. Buncombe County Health and Human Services and the Buncombe County Family Justice Center are hosting the event titled, "The Ripple Effect with Mia Birdsong." Birdsong is best known for her TED Talk: "The story we tell...

Photo—GET UP AND DANCE: Asheville City School's director of human resources Mark Dickerson, aka "Dr. DJ Mark," dances with students during this year's anti-bullying rally. Photo courtesy of Asheville City Schools Max Weissman , an adolescent counselor in Asheville, says cyberbullying is an issue that comes up all too often — by parents, educators and victims themselves — though often not directly. “Hardly anyone has come to me for therapy for bullying, though I’d say half the people I work...

Human services organizations and coalitions often talk about “making room at the table” for non-professionals, local residents and people with lived experience of poverty, addiction, mental illness or trauma. But those organization leaders rarely spend time at the community’s tables—that is, the block parties and cook-outs, playgrounds and parks, neighborhood association meetings, parent-teacher organizations, Little League games and other grass-roots venues that are essential grounds for...

Please find attached the 2016 booklet for the Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) project, including Buncombe County and the other 13 communities that have been selected to participate in this 2 year learning collaborative. This is a great summary of the work happening in all 14 communities across the country. I am looking forward to working with you all to share your story with the world!

Mobilizing action can be intimidating. Creating a movement even more so. John Hagel provides the following definition of a movement: “an organized effort mobilizing a large number of independent participants in a grassroots effort to pursue a broad agenda for change.” He indicates that there are two key ingredients in movement making: 1) compelling narratives and 2) fostering creation spaces. In Buncombe County, we are experimenting with both of these notions. Opportunity-based Narrative A...

Fantastic presentation, Melissa! This is really well put together, and those graphs are so powerful! The numbers don't lie. Thank you for sharing.