WellAWARE works to help you and your neighborhood become healthier in every way. CHWs help clients overcome barriers to good healthcare, such as lack of transportation, inability to pay, or distrust of the medical establishment.
Our Community Health Workers (CHWs) serve as front-line workers who are deeply familiar with the communities they serve. Sharing lived experience with clients aids our CHWs in establishing trusting relationships. We provide personalized assistance to improve clients’ access to care through strategies like transportation assistance, medical home connection, health education, referrals to mental health resources, accompanying clients to appointments, assisting with paperwork, and general advocacy and navigation in the complex healthcare system.
Our Core Values
Health Equity
We believe that equitable health care is a fundamental human right. Our goal is to partner with our clients to overcome their barriers to good health and healthcare, including racism, inadequate public transportation, lack of internet access, and inability to pay.
Community-Led
We believe that our focus communities are strong, and that their members have power and agency to know what is best for themselves and their own neighborhoods. In our engagement process, communities determine what services, if any, they want offered. At every level of decision-making, we elevate, honor, and defer to community members’ voices.
Partnerships
We believe in partnering with other local groups and agencies to advance shared goals around health equity. Through informal partnerships with groups like the NAACP, Health Equity and Access for Rural Residents (HEARR), and Move2HealthEquity, we strengthen the whole network’s goals of improving lives.
Who We Are
Betsy Peyton is a graduate of Charlottesville High School and the University of Virginia (B.A., B.S.N.). In more than twenty years as a Registered Nurse in community health, schools, and psychiatric settings in Charlottesville and New York City, she has worked successfully for better healthcare access and outcomes with such diverse client populations as undocumented mothers, elderly dementia patients, and homeless teenagers. With years of firsthand experience in home visiting, she is a passionate believer in the power of WellAWARE’s neighbor-to-neighbor model to overcome barriers to high-quality care. Betsy’s guiding principle in this work is to let communities lead the way and let the services follow.
Tracy has lived in Charlottesville for more than 20 years and is a graduate of Charlottesville High School. Through her past work with PACEM and Charlottesville Parks and Recreation, Tracy has connected with hundreds of her neighbors from all walks of life. She is excited to continue her caring work as a WellAWARE CHW. Tracey says, “It’s easier to help people and build trust when they know it’s not just a job–because I’ve been there myself.” In her spare time; Tracy loves to spend time with her two sons and travel, especially to Jamaica.
DeAnna is a lifelong resident of Buckingham County and a graduate of Buckingham High School. Her deep familiarity with this community helps make her work as a rural CHW even more successful. DeAnna has spent nearly 15 years in healthcare, as a phlebotomist, certified medical assistant, and patient care assistant. She is passionate about making healthcare more accessible for residents of her service area, which includes Southern Albemarle, Northern Buckingham, and Western Fluvanna counties. Her greatest love is spending time with her daughter doing activities like gardening and drawing together.
Primary Care Partnership Team
Tracy Downs, MD, Chief Diversity and Community Engagement Officer, UVA Health.
Jackie Martin, Director of Community Partnerships and Health Equity, UVA Health.
Mo Nadkarni, MD, Chief of General, Geriatric, Palliative and Hospital Medicine, and David A. Harrison Distinguished Educator at the UVA School of Medicine. Co-Founder of Charlottesville Free Clinic.
Amy Salerno, MD, Assistant Professor, General Medicine, Geriatrics and Palliative Care.
Rebecca Schmidt, Associate Director of Equity and Belonging, UVA.
Kim Stanton, Bright Stars Family Coordinator, Albemarle County.
Paula Tomko, CEO of Central Virginia Health Services.
10th&Page and Rose Hill Planning Committee: Bishop George Gohanna, Ashley Freeman, Gloria Beard, Katrina Turner, Cyndi Richardson, Nadine Michel, Lauren Stonestreet.
Esmont Area Planning Committee: Peggy Scott, Nancy Gill, Amy Kirchner, Debbie Smith, Willie Mae Gray.
