Building communities that support nourished, active, and joyful residents
Mission
The mission of Healthy Hampshire is to engage residents and institutional partners in co-creating healthy communities through collaborative, power-sharing processes that lead to systemic change.
Our Work
Healthy Hampshire’s work fits into three categories:
Community Planning
We work with stakeholders who share our goals to identify policy, systems, and environmental change priorities through community assessment and planning processes.
Coalition Building
We help launch and sustain community coalitions to work on priorities identified through community planning processes.
Program Design and Implementation
We help partners launch programs and projects that emerge as community priorities.
Approach and Values
All of Healthy Hampshire’s work is accomplished through partnerships. We work with a diverse array of community partners throughout Hampshire County and the Hilltowns to foster healthy communities. We do this by:
- Building relationships among people with diverse perspectives to cultivate shared understanding and develop collaborative visions.
- Understanding how white supremacy, settler colonialism, and the other systems of oppression are the root cause of health inequities.
- Cultivating practices that actively disrupt oppressive dominant systems, heal generational trauma, and realize life-affirming ways of working and being together.
- Continuously experimenting with different ways of sharing power, including utilizing decision-making methodologies that are non-hierachical, relational, and consent-based.
- Amplifying and centering people who are systematically excluded from power in goal-setting, decision-making, and evaluation.
Click here to read more about the values and guiding principles our work is rooted in.
Healthy Hampshire Team
Rossana Salazar, MPH
Rossana Salazar is a bilingual public health and early childhood professional with deep expertise in community engagement, health equity, and culturally responsive education. She currently serves at the Collaborative for Educational Services (CES) in Massachusetts, where she supports initiatives within the Healthy Families and Communities Department, including the Healthy Hampshire Program, the Early Childhood Department, and the Hampshire County Food Policy Council, where is the Language Access Coordinator. She also works closely with the Fort River Community Gardens and is coordinating and integrating a community-driven leadership program that integrates tobacco prevention initiative, food access, and public health outreach to support civic engagement and health equity.
Rossana is a Registered Nurse and holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) in Community Health Education, as well as a Graduate Certificate in Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Environmental Conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where her research focuses on the health and environmental challenges facing Indigenous communities in Latin America.
With more than two decades of experience, Rossana has worked across educational, healthcare, and community-based sectors, serving populations from childhood through old age. She specializes in providing direct support to Latino families, including access to early childhood education, food security, health services, and schools. She is also an experienced educator, teaching public health students how to bridge professional practice with community needs.
Rossana’s work is grounded in a bio-psycho-social approach and a commitment to social justice. She advocates for equitable systems that recognize and respond to the cultural, linguistic, and structural barriers many families face. Her work continues to build bridges between institutions and the communities they serve, always centering dignity, equity, and inclusion.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The House of Representatives, named Rossana the recipient of the Latino Excellence Award for the 3rd Hampshire District in 2022.Representatives, named Rossana the recipient of the Latino Excellence Award for the 3rd Hampshire District in 2022.
Position: Community Engagement and Evaluation Specialist / Early Learning and Outreach Educator Specialist
Email: rsalazar@collaborative.org
S. Clarke Bankert, MPH
Clarke Bankert (she/her/they/them) is the Co-Director of the Department of Healthy Families and Communities. In this role she facilitates a variety of community-led processes to promote healthy communities, shift power to people most impacted by health inequities, and dismantle systems of oppression that concentrate power in the hands of the few. Prior to this role, she managed Healthy Hampshire for eight years and has worked in the field of public health for over a dozen years to create healthier communities by supporting community-led processes for change. She has been involved in all aspects of the change process, including assessment and data collection, program design, program implementation, evaluation and organizational capacity building. Through each of these elements, Clarke brings a passion for community-led efforts that center the voices and actions of people who experience the greatest burden of health inequities in our communities. Prior to her work at CES, Clarke was a Prevention Specialist with the Western Massachusetts Center for Healthy Communities, a program of Cooley Dickinson Hospital supporting regional public health efforts. While at the Center for Healthy Communities she conducted the first Community Health Needs Assessment for the hospital and provided technical assistance on community food systems to the Holyoke Food and Fitness Policy Council.
Position: Co-Director, Department of Healthy Families and Communities
Email: cbankert@collaborative.org
Kia Aoki
Kia Aoki is one of the co-founders of the Hampshire County Food Policy Council (HCFPC) and currently serves as the Strategy & Network Coordinator. Previously, she has served in the HCFPC as Community Liaison and coordinator, facilitator, and scribe in numerous circles. Her past experience with homelessness, as well as her current experience as a long-time resident of public housing, inspired her to become involved in the HCFPC during its formation stage so that she could transform the food system to better serve the needs of her community. Kia also works on projects related to community-led solutions to economic oppression and community based participatory assessment and research, in addition to serving on the Board of Directors at Grow Food Northampton.
Position: Strategy & Network Coordinator
Email: kaoki@collaborative.org
Kristen Whitmore, MRP
Kristen Whitmore, MRP is the Healthy Hampshire Program Manager. Prior to this role, she served as the Special Projects Coordinator on the Healthy Hampshire team for four years. She is a founding member of the Hampshire County Food Policy Council (HCFPC), a platform created by and for residents typically excluded from public conversations to participate directly in building a food system where all people live more joyful and gratifying lives through access to affordable, healthy, locally grown food of their choice. Kristen led the development of HCFPC’s storytelling and narrative change initiative, including the creation of the Community Story Archive. She also developed and leads the Hilltown Produce Prescription Program. Kristen has 15 years of experience working to build equitable community food systems rooted in principles of food sovereignty, community self-determination, and collective change. She specializes in community engagement and leadership development, collaborative governance and organizational structures, systemic and cultural change models, narrative strategy, and participatory research/evaluation. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Gender Studies from Mount Holyoke College and a master’s degree in Regional Planning from University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Position: Healthy Hampshire Program Manager
Email: kwhitmore@collaborative.org