Get Involved
The Health Collaborative is made up of individuals and organizations who come together to learn, build and strengthen relationships, and take collective action towards improved community health. Each person brings unique skills, experience, and perspectives to this work and when we bring them all together, we can create real, lasting impact in our communities. Being part of The Health Collaborative helps you advance the issues you care about most.
There are many ways to be involved in the collaborative with varying levels of commitment and participation. There is no formal membership for our Local Chapters and Regional Collaborative. Anyone can participate at any time. If you would like to dedicate more time to addressing a specific issue, we encourage you to talk with your local Chapter Coordinator about joining or starting a Chapter work group (Visit our Local Chapters page for more information).
The Coordinating Committee and Coordinating Committee Action Teams are working groups that support the collaborative’s structure and processes. These are the most formal volunteer roles in our collaborative and generally require more responsibility and a greater time commitment. These positions are filled through an ongoing application process.
Now Accepting Letters of Interest for...
Coordinating Committee (CC) Members - The role of the CC is to build and maintain a strong and active collaborative structure with broad ownership and leadership opportunities, representing the diversity of the Dan River Region. The committee focuses on process, structure, and governance, not content. The strategies to address our vision areas (active living, food justice, quality healthcare, and healthy spaces) come from the chapters.
Coordinating Committee Action Team Members - In order to advance the major goals from the Committee’s annual work plan, members of the Coordinating Committee will co-lead Action Teams comprised of other Coordinating Committee members, collaborative partners, and residents with special skills or interest in the action team topic. Similar to the Coordinating Committee as a whole, these action teams will focus on process, structure, and governance, not content. Specific strategies for addressing our vision areas (active living, food justice, quality healthcare, and healthy spaces) will be developed within the chapters and their work groups.
2026 Action Teams will include:
- Health Equity Policy & Advocacy: Historically, this action team has helped THC better understand the roles of policy and advocacy in advancing health equity. They are working to develop a process for evaluating equity impacts in existing policies and for determining which policy issues are most important to local residents and THC partners. They are also working to develop a policy agenda and to advocate for federal, state, local, and organizational policy changes that support health for all people in the Dan River Region. Recognizing that certain professional roles may limit some partners' ability to engage directly in policy work, the team will identify and provide learning opportunities that help everyone understand different advocacy methods.
- Health Equity Report: This action team will work together to guide the work of updating our Health Equity Report. They will look at how community partners have used the report, how it could be made even more useful in the future, and whether or not there's any other data we need to collect. They'll also work to update the community survey and identify necessary focus groups.
- Community Engagement: This action team will work together to design and implement the process for disseminating the completed Health Equity Report and collecting feedback from the community and other stakeholders to update the Health for All Action Plan.
Any of our Health Collaborative partners are welcome to apply for a Coordinating Committee position at any time. As existing members leave the committee, we will return to the pool of interested community members to fill those open positions.
If you are interested in serving, please send a letter of interest to info@thehealthcollab.com.
