Community Leaders in Health Equity

Composed of three key elements, this equity and health equity leadership program helps participants build their capacity and power to improve their communities.
Overview
The Colorado Trust recognizes the untapped potential in Colorado communities to address even the most difficult health equity issues. As one way to provide tools and resources and help communities realize this potential, The Colorado Trust funds Community Leaders in Health Equity (CLHE). CLHE is an intensive equity and health equity leadership training and development program designed for people living in Colorado who are impacted by multiple forms of oppression and health inequities. The program is devised and implemented by Transformative Alliances LLC, a Denver-based anti-oppression and equity consulting organization.
Community Leaders in Health Equity is composed of three elements:
Community Leaders in Health Equity
More than 90 residents from across the state participate in a free 18-month education and leadership training program and curriculum focused on equity and health equity, to build their capacity to improve their communities. To ensure that program participants have the necessary backing to complete the program, they are supported and coordinated by dedicated grantee organizations in their region.
Continuing Track
Participants who complete CLHE and wish to continue their learning are invited to apply to participate in a second iteration of the program. The continuing track focuses on transformative organizing and concrete skill building, as well as deepening the equity and health equity analysis established in CLHE so that participants are equipped to advocate for equity and health equity at a community level.
Speaker Series and Associated Community Events
Formatted to parallel key aspects of the Health Equity Learning Series, the speaker series features presenters who help to increase knowledge and awareness of specific equity and health equity issues. These presentations are recorded, then featured in professionally facilitated events hosted by communities across Colorado.
Click here to learn more about each of these three elements.
Read the story below to learn more about the program and the inaugural class of CLHE

The Coloradans Bridging Our Deepest Divides
Faced with competing visions of the country, these community leaders chose life.
See more storiesStaff
Morris W. Price, Jr.
Evaluation Findings
Community Leaders in Health Equity (CLHE) is a community-based leadership development program to develop grassroots health equity leaders throughout Colorado. The program was designed and implemented by Transformative Alliances LLC and funded by The Colorado Trust between 2018 and 2022. It included an 18-month immersive curriculum, an educational speaker series with coordinating community events, and a 24-month continuing track that allowed a subset of interested participants to delve deeper into the curriculum and create and implement their own health equity plans to create change in their communities.
This set of evaluation briefs, authored by the American Institutes for Research, highlights evaluation results specifically from the CLHE continuing track (2019-22), which supported 25 community members throughout the state to complete 19 community projects focused on advancing health equity in their communities. The full evaluation of CLHE will be available in spring of 2023.