In February 2006, a decision was made to organize four CJ work groups to enhance the number and quality of initiatives serving the greater Charlottesville Latino community. Some work groups have been disbanded, reorganized or added based upon needs and the availability of volunteers to respond to them. In addition to work groups, CJ also has resource persons who are seasoned specialists with knowledge about a particular issue or population.

These two mechanisms facilitate greater participation in discussions, and maximize idea and resource exchanges, networking and partnerships. They strengthen the ability of service providers to do meaningful outreach and increase services available or provided to Latinos.

CJ welcomes the formation of new short-term or long-term work groups and new members in ongoing work groups.

A Working Group protocol was established in April 2006 to promote communication within these groups and between them and other Creciendo Juntos – Growing Together members and the general public.

Working groups and resource persons presently include:

Health Promoter/Promotor de Salud Group
Contact: Health Promoter Working Group
wlfwmn@gmail.com, ns7e@virginia.edu or aaron@saracville.org
Description: To explore new health promoter initiatives and in other ways
increase health services to area Latinos.
Click here to view the Health Promoter Working Group webpage

Annual Help Fair
Contact: Martha Trujillo
mtrujillo@unitedwaytja.org
Description: CJ organizes an annual Help Fair to offer service providers an opportunity to do
outreach in the Latino community and to provide Latinos information, workshops,
and other tools about community resources and issues important to them.
Click here for information

Southwood Work Group
Contact: Gloria Rockhold
grockhold@k12albemarle.org
Description: A resource to support Habitat and its residents. CJ maintains a Southwood webpage
that collects and stores media reports and other information about the trailer park and initiatives serving it.
Click here to view Southwood's webpage

Immigration Rights Resources
Contacts:
Tim Freilich
tim@justice4all.org
Eddie Summers
es@ocho.com
Doug Ford
doug@justice4all.org

CJ Mental Health Work Group
Contact: Elizabeth Irvin
eirvin@thewomensinitiative.org
Click here for more information about this site.

CJ Web Site Work Group
Contact: Linda Hemby
lhemby@albemarle.org
Click here for more information about this site.

Discontinued working groups include the following:

Faith Based Initiatives Work Group (2006 - 2010)
The group was a bridge between CJ and faith based organizations, encouraging and offering them opportunities to become more involved in the Latino community. Click here for resources generated by this work group.

CJ-UVA Projects (2006, 2007, 2008 – 2009)
Click here for an overview.

Power of Attorney and Guardianship Documents Initiative (2008 - 2009)
Preparations and follow up to the CJ October 2008 panel Immigration Detentions and Children, led to a collection of resources and to efforts by attorney Eddie Summer to develop bilingual power of attorney and guardianship documents that service providers can circulate to Latino families to help them deal with the complications of possible detentions. For information on this effort and its products, visit http://www.cj-network.org/cjimmrights/know_your_rights.html#lat_parents

Community Services Work Group (2005 – 2008)
Click here for Community Services’ webpage.

Mental Health Initiative (2007)
In 2007, Cheryl Ribano coordinated this project with the assistance of Linda Hemby. It consisted in identifying bilingual and bicultural mental health service providers who treat area Latinos, contacting them to obtain information about their services, and developing and making available a directory of these providers. The directory is updated regularly; to view it, visit http://www.cj-network.org/cjresources/MentalHealthDirectoryMar10.doc

Education (2006)
Click here for Education’s web page

Communications (2005 – 2006)
Click here for Communications' webpage