Page 34 - BusinessWest November 9, 2020
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Women of IMPACT
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Women of IMPACT
Helen
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Women of Caulton-
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Women of IMPACT
Harris
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Health and Human Services Commissioner, City of Springfield
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 This Leader in Public Health Is
a Fierce Advocate for Social Equity
ABy Joseph Bednar
career like that of Helen Caulton-Harris
can’t be adequately summed up in just a few words. But she offered three important ones anyway.
“I believe in three things that are important to me and how I have spent my career:
educate, advocate, and legislate.”
They apply both on the broader level and to
specific moments in time — like the era of COVID- 19 we’re living in now.
“To educate during this pandemic means to make sure we are educating the community about those things we need to do to stop the
“Poverty is really the number-one public-health issue that I’ve had to deal with over the years — the fact that individuals living in poverty do not have equal access to the kinds of outcomes that we want for a healthy population.”
 spread of this virus,” said Caulton-Harris, who has served as Springfield’s Health and Human Services commissioner for almost a quarter-century. That education has been a challenge, she added — and a constant learning experience as well.
“In the beginning, we really didn’t know what the impact was going to be. That’s why it’s called a novel coronavirus, because it’s new. Even the infectious-disease doctors, people who have studied all the science around diseases, had a learning curve with this virus. So we all are on this journey to try to educate.”
As for her advocacy role, “there are individuals in our community who don’t have a voice; they don’t have the ability to advocate for themselves, so our job in public health has really been to be the voice for the voiceless in our community, to make sure
they get what they need, but also make sure we are speaking truth to those individuals who need to hear the truth around how to stem the tide.”
Finally, “what are the legislative interventions that need to be put in place in order to make
sure we are doing what’s necessary on a political level?” she asked. “The messages from the political landscape, particularly at the federal level, have been very mixed, so it’s really been local public health out front, trying to do what we need to do in order to stem the tide of this virus.”
It’s been a busy year for someone whose role with the city — she also oversees animal control, veterans’ affairs, elder affairs, and libraries — has
Caulton-Harris
Continued on page A16
 Photo by Leah Martin Photography

























































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