On January 12, 2026, The Community Health Worker (CHW)Team of the Building Safer Communities Collaborative (BSCC) delivered training to a group of Community based Mentors on Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) and Mental Health First Aid (MHFA). The Building Safer Communities Collaborative Program, is a youth justice focused preventive intervention in collaborative partnership with Strickland Youth Detention Center, designed to help support youth 12 – 18 years, and their families, in the informal probation referrals process.

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HALO: Healing and Life Opportunities is USA Health's hospital-based violence intervention program run operated by the Center for Healthy Communities. The team spent the last year in program design and implementation with patients services officially launched in September. Check out the end of year report to learn more about HALO.

January is Substance Use Disorder Treatment Month. The CHC Community Health Worker team put together this resource to raise awareness about substance use disorder and its treatment.

This article, written by Carol McPhail, first appeared in the USA Health Insider. Mentors and family members celebrated seven teens who marked their graduation from Project Inspire, a hospital-based injury prevention program designed to curb violence among youth through intentional programming and mentorship. The event on Dec. 16 at Bishop State Community College featured slideshow remembrances from the semester interlaced with laughter and a few grateful tears.

The following reflection was written by Kierra Echols, community health worker in training. She participated in the second cohort of the Community Health Worker Training course. On Saturday, December 6, 2025, the USA Health Center for Healthy Communities and the Center for Continuing Education Cohort 2 Community Health Workers in training carried out their final group project—a community health outreach titled “

The USA Health Building Safer Communities Collaborative team attended the Alabama Juvenile Justice Summit in Orange Beach during the first week of December. Caroline Dodson, the team's research assistant also presented a poster on the program. In this article, Caroline and CHW Denise Shaw share about their experiences attending the conference. The Alabama Juvenile Justice Summit’s purpose was to create a statewide forum where the participants and speakers could collaboratively examine the strengths and challenges of their collective works with youth and families involved in the juvenile justice system.

The HALO: Healing and Life Opportunities is a CHC run program at USA Health University Hospital serving patients who have been treated for gunshot wounds. The program provides peer support, social needs assessments, and connections to critical community resources. The program aims to empower patient-participants to build a violence-free future and foster a healthier community.

The USA Health CHC outreach nurse participates in various community events to conduct blood pressure screenings and provide health education. She also visits certain sites -Prichard Housing, Tricks…

December is a time for celebration. It is also a time often filled with stress. The CHC Community Health Worker team put together this recipe for reducing stress.

During their second in person session, the STEMM Scholars fall cohort explored using different technologies in exploring and working in the environment. After spending time with their community mentors, students were divided into three groups working at stations involving electrical engineering, drone photography, and agriculture. Karla McCants, STEMM Scholars outreach coordinator, guided students to use an electrical engineering learning kit to build different “machines”.

November is National Homeless Youth Awareness Month. The CHC Community Health Worker team put together this resource to raise awareness about youth homelessness.

Recently, the journal Surgery published an article describing the development of the Consortium of Southeast Regional Violence Intervention Programs (CoSERV), with the goal of "fostering collaboration, sharing resources, and aligning advocacy efforts across state lines." Dr. Ashley Williams, CHC director, is a contributor to the article and the development of CoSERV. The article abstract is below. "The Southeastern United States is disproportionately impacted by firearm violence.

The USA Health Building Safer Communities Collaborative uses a public health prevention approach to address the needs of justice impacted youth 12yrs. to 18yrs. in Mobile County.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The CHC Community Health Worker team put together this resource to raise awareness about the impact of domestic violence on Children.

The fall 2025 cohort held its first in person session October 7th providing students an opportunity to interact with each other, the program staff, and community mentors. The two-hour session provided learning opportunities with a lot of fun included. The session started with dinner and a time for students to meet interact directly with mentors from the community and from the…

The following excerpt comes from a guest column Dr. Ashley Williams Hogue, director of the USA Health Center for Healthy Communities, wrote for AL.com When you work in trauma, you see a lot. But what stays with you is how young some of our patients are, especially those with firearm-related injuries. As a resident rotating through trauma surgery a decade ago, I was struck not just by how common gunshot wounds were, but by the ages of those who were brought to us for care.

The following article originally appeared in the Med School Watercooler. Keegan Musaalo, a third-year medical student at the Whiddon College of Medicine, presented research in September at the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) annual meeting in Boston. The presentation, titled “The Financial Impact of Firearm-Related Injuries: A One-Year Single-Institution Cost Analysis,” examined the financial impact of firearm-related injuries on both patients and the hospital system.