History of HealthEd Connect

HealthEd Connect was co-founded by Jac and Sherri Kirkpatrick and incorporated on May 19, 2009 in the State of Missouri with a 15 member board of directors. The organization itself is relatively new but has a rich heritage of passionate people and organizations that preceded its formal organization.

Sherri Kirkpatrick, PhD, began her work training community health workers (CHW) in Haiti in 1982, followed soon after by programs in the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Those early programs eventually disbanded due to a variety of reasons, however the programs were successful and sustainable in that education given to women never dies- instead it is passed on to subsequent generations. She continues her empowering work now with HealthEd Connect.

CHW programs were initiated in Africa in 1988 and in Nepal and India ten years later. Each program took on a unique personality to meet the specific needs of its community. The health workers in Malawi, for instance, hold classes for mothers and monitor over 25,000 babies annually while those in Nepal bring health care to remote villages in the Himalayas. Those in D.R. Congo serve as Traditional Birth Attendants and focus on safe delivery of over 1,400 babies each year, while programs in Zambia focus on support for AIDS-stricken families and sponsor community schools which have an enrollment of more than 1,400 orphans and vulnerable children.

In 2000, Graceland University officially embraced the long-standing Community Health Worker programs and established the International Health Center (IHC) with Sherri as the director.

In 2009 these programs were formally organized and enlarged to include programs targeting orphans and vulnerable children (OVC’s) in Africa. With the encouragement of Graceland University former President, John Sellars, Sherri Kirkpatrick (as Executive Director) and her husband Jac Kirkpatrick (as Financial Officer) incorporated the existing CHW programs under a new nonprofit, HealthEd Connect. HealthEd Connect continues to partner with Graceland for specific programs but now operates under its own separate 501(c)3.

In 2015 HealthEd Connect hired its first full-time paid executive director, Lauren Hall, and she served for several years. In 2018, Emily Penrose-McLaughlin was hired as executive director and continues to serve in this role. Co-founders Sherri and Jac Kirkpatrick continue to be immersed in the organization, both serving on the Board of Directors.

Traditional Healer Practices

In the 1990’s, Traditional Healers from Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) gave Dr. Sherri Kirkpatrick pamphlets containing their previously secret treatments, hoping to assess their effectiveness. Click below to read the translated documents.

Stories from the Field

Stories from the mid-2000’s in the community health workers’ own words