Organization
Khmer Health Advocates (KHA)
Khmer Health Advocates (KHA) is a Cambodian American health organization in West Hartford, Connecticut, that works with refugees and survivors of trauma.[1][2] Its legal name is Khmer Health Advocates, Inc., and its office is on New Britain Avenue in West Hartford.[2][3]
History
KHA began as a mental health organization. From the 1990s it saw a rising number of clients with diabetes, and it added programs to help them manage chronic physical illness.[1] Theanvy Kuoch, its executive director, and Mary Scully, its director of programs, built its work on a model they first used together in a Thai refugee camp in the 1970s.[1] In the spring of 2011 the two sought federal funds in Washington to continue and expand that work. They had first hoped for congressional hearings on Cambodian health on April 17, the anniversary of the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia, but that effort was dropped.[1]
In October 2015 KHA and the Southeast Asian American Health Coalition met in West Hartford with about 150 Cambodian, Lao and Vietnamese residents to discuss their health care needs. Kuoch was the main organizer of the session.[4]
Programs
KHA trains Khmer speakers as community health workers. They teach clients about healthy habits, interpret for them in the health care system and help them with the isolation common in a small community.[1] When funding allows, KHA uses videoconferencing to make these workers, often paired with pharmacists, available to Cambodian immigrants elsewhere in the United States. One trial offered the service remotely in California and in person in Massachusetts and Connecticut.[1] With Thomas Buckley of the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy, KHA worked to make sure clients took the right medications. That project enrolled people over 60, some of whom took 18 different drugs each day.[1] The state lists KHA among the mental health programs it funds in its Region 4.[3]
In 2022 a $25,000 grant from the Connecticut Health Foundation supported KHA's Community CARES (Communications, Access, Resources, Education and Strategies) Curriculum. The curriculum prepares community health workers to give trauma-informed, culturally sensitive care, and it draws on KHA's long experience training workers to care for trauma survivors. KHA planned to field-test it and share it nationally.[2] The foundation also gave KHA grants in 2002 ($60,000), 2004 ($51,750), 2016 ($48,990), 2017 ($50,000), 2020 ($10,000 and $15,000), 2021 ($15,000) and 2024 ($50,000).[2]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Pacific Standard, Pol Pot's legacy: Cambodian refugees in poor health (June 2011)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Connecticut Health Foundation, 2022 grant recipient: Khmer Health Advocates, Inc.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, Region 4 mental health services
- ↑ VOA Khmer, Southeast Asian residents in Connecticut meet to discuss healthcare needs (October 2015)