BETA Project Reflections from the Field

At the mid-point of the BETA Project in 2025 we traveled to our sites in Worcester, Massachusetts (Coalition for a Healthy Greater Worcester) and Albuquerque, New Mexico (Centro Sávila). During the trips we conducted interviews with each site team to observe and understand their work more deeply, learn about the history and context their work sits within, and learn about how they work with community to understand, research, and advocate for health equity in their communities. The following audio clips share some of the wisdom we learned during those interviews from Arabella, Bill, and Silvia at Centro Sávila and Casey and Raquel representing the Coalition for a Healthy Greater Worcester. Reflections are grouped together by some of the over-arching themes we have observed throughout the BETA Project that we find necessary to achieve existential justice; 1) the incorporation of healing-based practices; 2) the utilization of authentic narrative to advance equity, correct misinformation, and build compassion; and 3) the need for organizing and community power building to achieve big and little P policy change that closes gaps in access and services and advances health equity.

HEALING PRACTICES

The Healing Power of Family Traditions

Silvia, who is originally from Chihuahua, Mexico and came to the United States at about age 11, recalls the aspects of her childhood — the warmth and simple joys — that contributed to good health. She fondly remembers the traditions in her neighborhood, being surrounded by her extensive family, and the love and attention she received from one person in particular, her abuelita (grandmother).

The Role of Healing in Community Organizing: an Example from Worcester's Trauma Resilience and Racial Equity Institute (TREATI)

Raquel describes the work of the Trauma Resilience and Racial Equity Institute (TREATI), which works with local leaders to address the lived experience and associated traumas they carry, which can lead to unintended consequences (such as disruption of work, lack of trust, working in silos) that hinder equity-based organizing work. The program encourages leaders to find forgiveness for harms, heal, embrace their legitimacy, start form  forgiveness and love, and learn from history. 

Transforming Environmental Challenges into Opportunities for Healing

Casey describes Worcester’s history of (mostly lead-based) soil contamination and Raquel connects that history to her lived experience, recalling how growing up near contaminated soil (i.e. factories, railroad) negatively impacted the health of her family. Although this history presents major environmental challenges, they also describe the positive impact of community efforts and how some of the contaminated spaces have been transformed into purveyors of health, illustrating both the harms of societal inequities and the healing possible through community action.

NARRATIVE CHANGE

From Individual Blame to Structural Accountability

Bill discusses healthcare in the United States and how the narrative around it should emphasize social and community determinants of health, not just individual biology. Health problems often arise from systemic factors like poverty, racism, sexism, food access, safe spaces, and housing, yet as a society we tend to focus on individuals while ignoring structural issues (i.e. criminalizing and/or blaming victims of poor policy). Bill describes the benefits of focusing more rhetoric on systemic issues, and how listening to lived experiences can help build intersectoral, preventive systems that reduce unnecessary suffering and costs.

Honoring Authentic Immigrant Narratives

Bill describes how Centro Sávila advocates for health care as a basic right to strengthen communities and reduce crisis care, explaining how dehumanizing immigrants harms society. Rather, they honor immigrants’ histories and experience — sharing stories of families fleeing danger, and resisting policies that criminalize poverty, race, or immigrant status — with the aim of promoting compassion and inclusion, and maintaining humanity in public policy.

The Power of Narrative Strategy to Highlight Complexity

Raquel and Casey discuss their efforts to make community health assessments more rooted in the community while balancing the need for short-term outcomes with long-term system changes (i.e. housing and education). They highlight their use of narrative strategy to explain why systems changes are needed, arguing that complex storytelling clarifies resource priorities and informs training, accountability, and evaluation. They explain how storytelling can benefit both those far removed from daily negative health impacts and those living with them, by putting a face to issues, and fostering healing, dignity, and visibility. 

Using Language to Reframe How We View Immigrants

Arabella recounts her focus on immigrant rights as she pursued her Masters degree in social work, specifically documenting and researching the experiences of detained migrants in New Mexico, and contributing to legislation to protect them. Bill also highlights the invisibility of detainees and the gap between anti-immigrant rhetoric and reality. They discuss the benefits of embracing immigration — citing examples from Europe — and underscore the need for language that humanizes and authentically represents immigrants' lives.

Organizing & Community Power Building

Building Community Power & Voice Within Health Care Systems

Bill and Arabella discuss a future shaped by a diverse, skilled, and immigrant-rich workforce that views healthcare as a pathway to opportunity and community. Emphasizing the need to listen to staff and clients, share power, and prevent suffering, Bill sees healthcare as a major New Mexico industry that can support healthy families and middle-class jobs. Through the BETA Project, they have created an Ambassador Program that aims to help Ambassadors identify and augment their inherent knowledge and power to build their capacity for advocacy, social work, and other related fields, while channeling their passion, as well.

Centro Sávila, a Model for Community-Centered & Responsive Behavioral Health Care

Bill discusses how and why he created Centro Sávila, in response to unequal access to behavioral health services across Albuquerque’s four quadrants. He describes why he decided to bring care closer to underserved communities in the South Valley, and how he continues to reduce barriers to accessing care, such as language access. This approach highlighted a systemic issue: providers did not reflect the state’s demographics, necessitating localized, accessible services.

Moving to a Systems-Approach; Incorporating Social Determinants of Health in Health Equity Frameworks

Raquel and Casey describe how folks are beginning to shift toward a broader, more systemic vision of health equity by focusing on social determinants of health, linking societal issues such as education, housing, and mental health to better health outcomes and longer lifespans. They credit early advocates that helped people see that connection, promoting community organizing to address racism and neighborhood conditions. Despite tensions, these efforts have helped integrate a focus on equity into the health department’s work, and which influences the Coalition for a Healthy Greater Worcester's framework in order to maintain this knowledge and remind folks of the lessons learned.

Barriers to Accessing QUALITY Care as a Migrant

Although people sometimes qualify for benefits, Silvia describes how many are scared to apply, fearing repercussions due to their immigrant status. She recounts a personal experience where a loved one refused hospital care despite being in dire pain, which reveals an underlying pattern: patients fear medical costs or consequences and avoid seeking help, mirroring how clients hesitate to ask for needed hospital or benefits support.

The Impact of Demographic Change on the Organizing Landscape in Worcester

Raquel and Casey discuss Worcester’s growing diversity since the 1980s, as evidenced by the hundreds of languages currently spoken in Worcester public schools. The city’s younger, more diverse demographic contrasts with an entrenched older, whiter population, which tends to yield more influence over politics and policy. They also describe how historically, immigrant and Latino communities built hubs — community centers and organizations — that provided core services and advocacy, but share how many of these essential organizations have dissolved or disbanded in the past ten years, leading to a fragmented organizing landscape. That said, they see hope within newer generations, who are attempting to rebuild leadership through cross-community collaboration and partnerships with larger institutions.

The Role of Systems Thinking in Advocacy Around Food Insecurity

Casey and Raquel discuss how viewing food insecurity through a racial equity and healing lens reveals both humanity and complexity, combating reductive labels that denigrate those facing food insecurity. They discuss the benefits of focusing advocacy upstream through a systems-based lens that aims to address root causes, and discuss the challenge of separating personal responsibility from circumstances, highlighting the importance of storytelling as a means of illustrating how experiences shape choices.