The Wellness Collaborative (TWC), founded by three Black women—an internist, a pediatrician, and a psychologist—is a wellness educational nonprofit located in Roxbury MA that provides an innovative solution to eliminating health care disparities. We provide education, insight, and best practices that promote sustainable personal and community health, wellness, and resilience.
TWC is unique because of our interdisciplinary framework, ethnocultural focus and strengths-based approach to the social determinants of health. Rather than using the typical labeling of social and environmental issues as “determinants,” we frame them as “influencers,” which means they do influence but are not fixed or fated determinants of our health.
TWC seeks to solve the problem of health disparities by addressing these social influencers of health through a people-centric, community and partnership model to co-create collections, programs and support collaborative solutions.
TWC's innovative approach strategically links people, programs, practices and policies that engage and impact Black and Brown communities and leaders of all kinds. We convene and curate programs by incorporating our signature 7 Disciplines of Wellness©
TWC is unique because of our interdisciplinary framework, ethnocultural focus and strengths-based approach to the social determinants of health. Rather than using the typical labeling of social and environmental issues as “determinants,” we frame them as “influencers,” which means they do influence but are not fixed or fated determinants of our health.
TWC seeks to solve the problem of health disparities by addressing these social influencers of health through a people-centric, community and partnership model to co-create collections, programs and support collaborative solutions.
TWC's innovative approach strategically links people, programs, practices and policies that engage and impact Black and Brown communities and leaders of all kinds. We convene and curate programs by incorporating our signature 7 Disciplines of Wellness©
Our 4 Pillars
Collaboration
|
Community First
|
Ethno-Cultural Focus |
Universal Humanity |
Our Team
Executive Directors
|
Karen T. Craddock, PhD, EdM
Co-Founder Executive Director of Programs and Community Initiatives Read More |
Directors
Advisory Board
|
Robin L. Reed, MD is an Internal Medicine physician with extensive experience caring for underserved populations, and health care in community and public health settings. She believes that prevention and whole person care, with social, behavioral, and cultural integration is the key to improving health for all and overcoming a system that favors those with more financial resources. She advocates transforming care towards a more self-directed, participatory, and collaborative care model that builds trust and relationship on top of an integrative knowledge base.
Dr. Reed earned a BA in Psychology from Stanford University in California, her MD at NYU in New York City. She trained at Harlem Hospital, before completing an Integrative Medicine Fellowship at University of AZ under Dr. Andrew Weil. She also received an MBA from Northeastern University. Dr. Reed has served as a clinician at the Dimock Center, Chief of Medicine at the Commonwealth’s Shattuck Hospital for public health, and as medical director at Old Colony Correctional Center, and now serves as the medical director at the Addiction Treatment Centers of New England in Brighton. Dr. Reed is a strategic advisor and cofounder of The Wellness Collaborative, Inc. and the visionary for their signature Reimagining Health Care & Wellness Forums. She currently has a private practice in Direct Primary care at WellnessRox DPC, LLC in Roxbury, MA where she bridges the gap for communities of color and students seeking more personalized care. |
|
Beverly Williams is a native Bostonian and community leader with an impressive background with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO). Williams is presently a sitting GBIO executive board member but post Co-Chair of the nonprofit, the steering co-chair for Criminal Justice Reform, and a Citywide Facilitator of congregational interfaith liaison. In those roles Williams helped expand GBIO’s broadband of leaders, membership, and the social justice agenda. These led to victory wins with the state's 2018 Criminal Justice Reform Law, and the 2020 Police Accountability Reform Law. She was presented a Community Champion Award by the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (2018) and was a Distinguished Black History Honoree at the 2021 Multicultural Symposium Series Event.
During her tenure as Co-Chair, she helped lead a re-founding of the organization and GBIO grew from 40 dues paying organizations to 60 with a growth of more Boston central-based institutions, ultimately, leading to a GBIO 2021 Boston Mayoral Local Campaign which secured $50 million dollars for deferred maintenance at Mildred C Hailey public housing development and $17 million to redevelopment. This campaign also led to winning more social workers in Boston Public Schools and expanded the Mayor’s Office of Returning Citizens by a budget increase and new staffing, including a new director. Outside of GBIO, Williams also works on closing the inequity gaps in underrepresented communities. She is a community co-owner/member of the Dorchester Food Co-Op which helps to deliver better food and services for the multi-ethnic community. She also has worked with other community leaders on projects that address the Black economic disparity gaps. Williams is also a retired Boston Public School Educator having served 27 years and she earned a Boston Educator of the Year Award by then Mayor Thomas Menino. Building capacity to lead and empower is the mind, heart, and feet of Williams’ work whether around education, access to decent and safe affordable housing, affordable health and mental healthcare, criminal justice reform, or legislative advocacy for policies that work for the community and not against it. Her passion, and her ability to use her experience to get the experiences we want, add compliment to The Wellness Collaborative, Inc board. |
|
Derrick Z. Jackson, journalist for The Union of Concerned Scientists, Grist.org. and ESPN’s The Undefeated and board member of The American Prospect Magazine, Environmental Health News and Write Boston and a UCS Fellow in climate and energy and the Center for Science and Democracy. In 2022, his UCS commentaries won first place from the Outdoor Writers Association of America and were a contest finalist for the National Headliners and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSNC). In 2021, he was the Scripps Howard opinion winner and social justice commentary winner for NSNC.
Also in 2021, Jackson won first-prize in teen nonfiction from the Independent Book Publishers Association for co-authoring and photographing The Puffin Plan (Tumblehome Books). Formerly of the Boston Globe and Newsday, Jackson is a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and respectively, an 11-time, 4-time, and 2-time winner from the National Association of Black Journalists, the NSNC, and the Education Writers Association. He has been a photography contest finalist several times, including third place in 2020 from BirdWatching magazine. He was a 2016 Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, publishing a paper on the national media’s failures in the Flint Water Crisis. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Jackson is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. He was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University. He holds three honorary degrees and the UW-Milwaukee Distinguished Alumni Community Service award. |
|
Turahn Dorsey is a researcher, policymaker and strategist whose career has focused on systems change and civic innovation. As Chief Impact Officer at the Eastern Bank Foundation, he helps the foundation invest in strategies to expand economic mobility and inclusion across the region and is among the leaders reshaping the early childhood landscape in Massachusetts. Additionally, Dorsey is the co-founder of the Jazz Urbane Cafe, a new arts hub and full service restaurant slated to open in Boston's Nubian Square and is the the Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology’s current board chair. Finally, Dorsey served as Boston’s Chief of Education in Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s cabinet from September 2014 to November 2018.
|
Community Board Members
leaf denotes Seed Membership
Fanta Atkinson, Ph.D., LMHC Affiliation: Director at the Center for Homicide Bereavement at the Cambridge Health Alliance Consultant/ Workshop Facilitator-Private Practice Read Bio |
Richard Booth, Ph.D., LMHC Affiliations: Clinician-Brown University Counseling Services Board of Trustees Member-Village Green Virtual Charter School Clinician/ Consultant/ Workshop Facilitator-Private Practice |
Sadiq Bradford |
|
Steven Craddock Managing Director Economic Development, Diversity & Inclusion Councilman, Wampanoag Tribe Aquinnah |
Jerel Ferguson Education & Volunteer Coordinator The Urban Farming Institute urbanoutdoorsassociation.com |
|
Fulani Haynes, RN Chef Fulani’s Kitchen |
|
|
Xenia Johnson Bhembe, MD
|
Ronald Lammy eCaroh Consulting |
Sahar Lawrence |
|
Mary Ann Nelson, Esq. Executive Director Mission Hill Health Movement |
Teresa Lammey
|
|
Jeri Robinson
Retired VP, Early Learning Initiatives The Boston Children’s Museum |
Khalil Saddiq Racial Equity Consultant Founder, 901 Consulting |
Gerta St. Fort
|
|
|
Joyce Swagerty, M.Ed. Education Consultant Your Fresh Horse “live the learning life” p: 781.862.5185 | e: [email protected] |
Irischa Valentin Community Herbalist De La Tierra Botanicals https://www.facebook.com/delatierrabotanicals/ |
|
Seed Partners
Community Partners
|
|
