Ms. Hadden serves as President and CEO of Healthy Community Partners and held that position for fourteen years. The non-profit community based organization has received funding from Michigan State University, Saint Mary’s of Michigan, and a variety of regional foundations. For the last ten years Ms. Hadden has worked as a community organizer in the five major neighborhoods in Saginaw, Michigan and was the first person to bring the Asset Based Community Development approach to Saginaw. She facilitates neighborhood participation in a local Capacity Inventories and Asset Mapping projects, to identify the gifts, talents and skills of neighbors and connect them by common interests resulting in community building initiatives. Additionally, Ms. Hadden coordinates the Community Defined Health program bringing together nursing and occupational therapy students from Saginaw Valley State University and medical students from Michigan State University to work with families in identifying assets that create and sustain health in the neighborhood. As a result, neighbors discover their own resources to become co-producers of health, moving far beyond the idea of a patient as a mere consumer of health.
Ms. Hadden has also served for 7 years as the Project Director for Healthy Futures, a countywide coalition of a seventeen member organization supporting access to health care for the homeless and uninsured in Saginaw County, Michigan. Healthy Futures is comprised of a network of seven, free, street clinics serving this target population which is estimated to be 40,000 individuals or 20% of the total county population. A pool of over 150 volunteer physicians, family nurse practitioners and nurses have been recruited to provide medical care. Community service coordination is provided by Healthy Futures Guides, residents hired from the neighborhoods and trained in ABCD to navigate patients through all aspects of non-medical care and community resources. Over 9,000 patients have been served to date, 4,466 patients have been connected to a medical home, and over 1,700 patients have been enrolled in a health plan. The Healthy Futures program utilizes an asset based approach to health care delivery and patient charts include a capacity inventory allowing the patient to focus on their strengths and partner in their care plans.
Ms. Hadden has extensive experience in the development of primary care systems and community and economic development programs. She has an undergraduate degree in Secondary Education with emphasis in English and Spanish and a master’s degree in English Composition and Communications Theory, both from Central Michigan University.
Ms. Hadden was awarded a “Creating Healthier Communities” Fellowship from the prestigious Health Forum, an International Leadership program affiliated with the American Hospital Association. Her project entitled “Community Defined Health™” is recognized nationally for its innovative combination of Asset Based Community Development and the education of health professions students. Ms. Hadden serves as adjunct Instructor for the College of Human Medicine, Department of Family Practice, at Michigan State University and as an Instructor in the College of Nursing at Saginaw Valley State University. She has published several articles detailing her work in Saginaw’s neighborhoods. These include, “The Community as Co-Producer of Health” in the Jan/Feb 2000 issue of the Health Forum Journal and “Community Defined Health: Thinking From the Inside Out” in the Fall 2000 issue of Metropolitan Journal.
President and CEO, Healthy Community Partners
Project Director, Healthy Futures Program, St. Mary’s of Michigan
800 S. Washington, Saginaw, MI 48601