Page 9 - Healthcare News May/June 2022

MAY/JUNE 2022 WWW.HEALTHCARENEWS.COM 9
The 40 Under Forty Healthcare Honorees
On June 16, HCN’s sister publication, BusinessWest, celebrated its 40 Under Forty Class of 2022 at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. This was a diverse class in every way, with many honorees working in the region’s healthcare sector. Here are profiles of those honorees:
Tiana Davis
Deputy Public Health Commissioner, City of Springfield; Age 34
When you hear someone referring to a “friend of the homeless,” they may be talking about Tiana Davis. After working for years in healthcare, Davis changed
her career path from direct patient care to public health. When she earned her master of public health degree with a concentration in community health education and health policy & management from UMass Amherst, she didn’t envision herself in her current position, but she’s found that she has a passion for service.
Davis, who first earned an associate’s degree at Springfield Technical Community College, oversees services for the Homeless Health Center, a federally qualified
health center in the city of Springfield that provides
quality primary healthcare, dental care, behavioral-health services, and comprehensive support services to individuals
Whitney Dodds
CEO, Wellness for the Culture; Age 32
Whitney Dodds is on a mission to shift the narrative on mental healthcare in black and brown communities. And she told BusinessWest that her inspiration was her own life experience.
“My lived experience as a black woman living here in the city of Springfield was such a traumatic background, and I didn’t really have an understanding of what therapy was and how to utilize it,” she recalled, adding that, if she had such an understanding of what was available and how safe it was, her early life would have been different — and better.
Dodds earned a degree in psychology from UMass Amherst and a master’s degree in counseling psychology
Giselle Gaines
Community Development Manager, Sevita; Age 33
When asked what she loves most about her job, Giselle Gaines had trouble picking out anything she doesn’t love.
“It doesn’t feel like work,” she said. “They say if you love what you do, you won’t work a day in your life. This is a lifestyle for me.”
She was speaking about her role with Sevita, a provider of home- and community-based care for people of all ages with any number of needs. “We offer adults, children,
and families high-quality services and supports that lead to growth and independence no matter what physical, intellectual, or behavioral challenges they face.”
The organization, once known as the Mentor Network, has been around for 50 years, providing services ranging
and families experiencing homelessness within Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties.
She oversees the day-to-day operations relating to patient care, staff development, training, program data and collection, and billing. She also manages the contracts with community partners with whom she
collaborates to provide services to individuals within the community. For instance, she works closely with Mercy Medical Center and Baystate Health.
Davis works tirelessly to ensure that people without housing are treated with dignity and respect by assuring that quality medical care is rendered. She has strengthened partnerships by cultivating relationships with open-door/ open-pantry programs and the Friends of the Homeless program by helping to enhance their case-management systems.
As a consummate professional who takes her job very seriously, Davis led the Homeless Health Center
from American International College. It was during her college years that she questioned why she didn’t have therapy and why she didn’t know what therapy was. It was then that she realized things needed to change; she knew not only that something needed to happen, but that she needed to be the one to make it happen.
And that’s exactly what she’s doing as the founder of Wellness for the Culture, a mental-health organization in Springfield.
“We offer individual and group therapy services — that is the meat of what we do,” she explained. “We also provide educational training and workshops to professionals. We have an internship program where we offer education for them as well to get into the field.”
from home care and adult
day health to foster care and programs for children with autism. As the Community Development manager, Gaines brings new partners and
new revenue streams to the company, but also serves as a liaison between the community and those services, building relationships with other
healthcare professionals who can help clients.
“I feel I can relate to these families and bring my own
story to them,” she said. “I have children with disabilities as well. Part of the reason I chose this vital work is to help build a world I want for my kids and other kids when they become adults.”
As the mother of four children with autism, Gaines wanted a career where she could advocate for her family and others like it. But she has a heart for serving the
organization through a site visit that was conducted by the Health Resources Services Administration, the department’s federal funding organization, and was extremely successful.
Springfield Health and Human Services Commissioner Helen Caulton-Harris noted that, during the pandemic, Davis’s ability to guide health services for the homeless was key to assuring that medical care for homeless population was rendered with steadfast consistency through that difficult period.
Davis received recognition from the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) for staff-development programs. The citation acknowledges her commitment to public service, as well as her ongoing dedication to enhance the quality of services delivered to residents of the Commonwealth.
When asked what she does for fun outside of work,
she replied, “I love gardening and eating. I like to explore different types of foods from various cultural backgrounds. I like trying different foods and going to different places to eat.”
— Elizabeth Sears
On top of that, Wellness for the Culture offers wellness-track education, which includes things like yoga, mindfulness, and “just anything involved with healing — generational healing,” she explained.
Wellness for the Culture caters to marginalized populations, specifically black and brown populations, who are often apprehensive in seeking out therapeutic services based on safety and the history of abuse in therapeutic techniques and practices against people of color.
Outside of work, Dodds has three “amazing” boys to whom she enjoys being a soccer mom, basketball mom, and piano mom. She loves reading, as well as date nights with her husband. She adds that what keeps her sane is anything that she can do with her hands — particularly gardening. She also values the importance of self-care so that she can continue to do the important work that goes on at Wellness for the Culture.
— Elizabeth Sears
community in other ways, too.
A Leadership Pioneer Valley alumna and coach, she’s
also the Diversity and Outreach officer for the Springfield Ward 4 Democratic Committee and worked with Springfield College staff on last year’s Be the Change event, which promoted leadership and civic engagement. She’s also a board member of Easterseals Massachusetts’ Western Mass. Regional Board; founder and board chair of the Miracle Marc Foundation, which promotes water safety; and a board member with Keep Springfield Beautiful.
She also created 413 Community Hands, a collaboration among local organizations to bring essential resources, education, and healthcare access to people and communities in need.
Why take on all that on top of her career and family? Again, she doesn’t consider it work. “I want to be the change I want to see in the world, and I strive to do that every single day.”
— Joseph Bednar