The Department of Family Medicine Community Engagement program is going through restructuring. So stay tuned for updates! In the meantime, use the buttons below to check out our Community Presentations page for a list of upcoming and past monthly presentations and recordings or visit our DFM in the Community organized volunteering and support activities page.
It's not enough to just exist in a community. We at the Department of Family Medicine continuously work to become contributing members of our CU Anschutz Medical Campus home and the communities that surround our home base.
Our faculty, staff, residents and students serve the people of Denver, Aurora, and surrounding suburbs in our clinics and hospitals. We also call these vibrant communities home. 鈥�
We strive to provide a healthy environment for all, and we are committed to attracting and training individuals whose varied backgrounds empower them to provide exceptional health care for their patients and communities.
Being a part of, engaging with, and caring for our community is part of our core values. We hope you’ll join us in living up to our mission to heal, teach, discover, and connect. Together.
Once a burgeoning farming suburb of Denver - Aurora is now 麻豆传媒高清’s third largest city with a population of more than 381,000 residents.
The population is about 29% Hispanic/Latino, 16% Black/African American, 6% Asian, and houses refugees and immigrants from many countries, with over 160 languages spoken in Aurora Public Schools.
Northwest Aurora (our neighborhood) is home to the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, which is the city’s second largest employer (behind Buckley Air Force Base), and Children’s Hospital 麻豆传媒高清 is its largest private employer. It is also home to the Department of Family Medicine and to many of us.
This part of the city is one of its most richly diverse. But, along with that diversity, it faces challenges with health disparities, lower income and employment levels, and other social determinants of health and economic well-being as compared to other parts of Aurora, the Denver-metro area, and the state of 麻豆传媒高清 as a whole.
Despite these challenges, the rich cultural fabric of Aurora makes it a vibrant, creative, and enriching place to live, work, learn, and thrive.
There are many opportunities to enjoy all that Aurora has to offer including: dining on food from one of the many in the city; catching a show at the Vintage Theatre just off of Colfax Avenue; enjoying an art exhibit created by young people from Aurora at ; perusing the small businesses and shops at the Stanley Marketplace; enjoying some outdoor time at Cherry Creek State Park; and so much more!
Denver has seen tremendous change in recent years as a steady influx of people from around the country and world have come to this vibrant front range city looking for adventure and opportunity.
Denver’s estimated population was nearly 705,000 in 2017, a 17.41% increase since the 2010 census, making it one of the fastest growing cities in the United States. The city’s population is about 31% Latino/Hispanic (predominately Mexican American) and 10% Black/African American; 23.5% of the population speaks only Spanish at home.
Denver’s diversity continues to grow alongside its population. Around the city, you will find neighborhoods as disparate as the Highlands with its hipster breweries and luxury condominiums; Athmar Park where you can get an authentic Vietnamese Bahn Mi; Five Points, a historically African American neighborhood; and Montbello, home to one of Denver’s several predominantly Spanish-speaking communities. In addition, Denver is home to thousands of refugees from around the world, boasts a vibrant LGBTQ community, and, as the state capitol, is the state’s center of political discourse and activism.
With 300 days of sunshine each year, we are often found hiking and rock climbing in one of the many nearby state parks, attending concerts at Red Rocks Amphitheater, cheering at Rockies baseball games, skiing in Breckenridge, or enjoying one of Denver’s many breweries.
We also enjoy the city's arts and culture, including the Denver Art Museum, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and a blossoming food scene. With unbeatable metropolitan amenities nestled in a striking Western landscape, the Mile High City certainly has something for everyone.鈥�
The work we do at the Department of Family Medicine goes beyond the metro Denver area.
We have partnerships throughout the state and have been leaders pushing for improved behavioral health care in primary care clinics and fighting the opioid crisis. We have been involved in multistate projects to improve cardiovascular health outcomes, used policy and our voice to advocate for our patients at the state and national level, and led the way in increasing the rural primary care workforce.
Heather Bleacher, MD, MPH
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Dr. Bleacher is core faculty at the University of 麻豆传媒高清 Family Medicine Residency, and practices family medicine in inpatient and outpatient settings. Through caring for people from many different backgrounds, Heather has witnessed the way they have been harmed or helped through the policies, practices, culture and beliefs that mold their environment. As a result, her career has been focused on shaping new physicians and clinical settings into agents of equity. Since 2012 she has co-directed the residency’s community health curriculum which focuses on population health, advocacy, and community engagement. She has led initiatives at her practice to address health inequities by attending to patients’ social barriers to health. In her role as Director of Health Equity for Clinical Affairs, Heather is working to develop tools, resources, practices and policies to help medical clinics incorporate the pursuit of health equity and the elimination of systemic oppression into their vision and day-to-day operations.
Sheryl Harrington
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Sheryl is the Community Program Manager working with the department develop the new Community Engagement Program (CEP) long term goals and Strategic Plan. She develops relationships with community organizations in Denver, Aurora and across 麻豆传媒高清 to share information, amplify messaging and promote health related resources. Since 2022, Sheryl has organized the DFM Community Engagement Program Monthly Meetings (DFM-CEP-MM) where community organizations, DFM and other community-focused campus entities gather to learn about each other and make connections. Additionally, Sheryl supports community engaged activities such as patient listening sessions and clinic education such as Data Walks where clinics learn about the health demographics of the communities surrounding their clinics. Sheryl was the Program Manager for the Community-Campus Partnership on Anschutz Medical Campus from 2014-2020 supporting the Learning Local, Hire Local, and Buy Local initiatives along with the transformative work of the Resident Leadership Council (RLC). She continues to collaborate and support RLC’s work. Sheryl is a native Bostonian with a background working in: mental health treatment programs, United States Peace Corps, fundraising/advancement, volunteer organizing, community education programming, and program management.Vanessa Owen, MA
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Vanessa Owen has been a Senior Research Services Professional at the University of 麻豆传媒高清, Department of Family Medicine since 2020. Before working with the DFM at CU, Vanessa worked at Children’s Hospital 麻豆传媒高清 in public health and spiritual care for 14 years. At Children’s, Vanessa worked extensively on issues around crisis, trauma, loss, resiliency, ethics, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Vanessa feels deeply committed to addressing the ways in which systems impact people. In her work with the DEIA team at University, as well as in her work with the School of Medicine’s residency population health, advocacy, and community engagement curriculum, she has come to believe strongly in the importance of changing policies, improving work cultures, and transforming the harmful beliefs that people espouse, in order to reduce harm being inflicted on BIPOC and LGBTQIA communities. Currently, Vanessa also works with the Integrated Behavioral Health Plus evaluation team and is passionate about addressing the mental health crisis that is occurring in the United States by helping to integrate behavioral health care services into primary care practices.
Sheryl Harrington
Program Manager - Community
sheryl.harrington@cuanschutz.edu
We are on a mission to heal, teach, discover and connect...
TOGETHER.
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