UTSA social work students helping West Side community stay healthy
(To view more photos of the class and its efforts, visit the Transform Your Health Facebook page.)
(To view more photos of the class and its efforts, visit the Transform Your Health Facebook page.)
Share this Story(Nov. 23, 2015) -- A class of graduate students enrolled in The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) Master of Social Work program is conducting a semester-long project meant to promote healthy lifestyles in a West Side San Antonio neighborhood.
Since August, the Transform Your Health SA project has been collaborating with the Madonna Neighborhood Center and Edgewood Independent School District to promote family friendly programming and education to combat obesity in San Antonio children.
Launched in 2014, Transform Your Health SA is run by students enrolled in the graduate-level Advanced Communities class taught by Emmett Gill, assistant professor of social work. Each semester, the class takes classroom learning into the community as a way to transform lives.
“The Transform Your Health SA project and our students are making a huge difference in the Edgewood community,” Gill said. “They have done an absolutely amazing job of rising to the challenge of organizing and providing support to the necessary work that the Madonna Neighborhood Center provides.”
This is the third semester that Transform Your Health SA has worked with its Edgewood community partners to promote the Madonna Neighborhood Center’s services, provide healthy options and programs to the neighborhood and boost its efforts to help revitalize the community. A new class of students runs the project each semester, supporting its mission to help low-income families.
For San Antonio native Lanette Zapata, a graduate student in this semester’s class, working on the project has been personally and profoundly impactful. As a child, she lived near the Madonna Neighborhood Center and attended its summer programs.
“Working with the Madonna Neighborhood Center through Transform Your Health SA is a lot like coming home to me,” Zapata said. “As a child, I learned how important the center’s services were. I know the good that they do in the community, and I feel blessed to be able to help other children receive the kind of positive experiences that I had.”
Over the course of the fall semester, Zapata and her fellow students have so far raised more than $2,400 in donations to promote the Madonna Neighborhood Center’s health efforts, collected $250 worth of sports equipment, developed and collected more than 300 health surveys from community residents, and planned and promoted several community events, including fitness classes and healthy education workshops. The students have also volunteered more than 30 hours outside of class to beautify the center’s amenities, including manicuring its baseball fields and painting exercise stations and benches.
Additionally, UTSA students also have created a resource map, providing more than 300 local businesses, organizations and community centers the opportunity to connect with one another and develop an extensive network of support and resources. Local businesses and organizations regularly visit the center to share information about their services to the community.
“Our goal this semester was to create lasting connections between the community and to give people a place where they can congregate in healthy ways,” Zapata said. “I hope that the work we and future UTSA social work students are doing in the community continues to have a positive impact.”
UTSA’s Advanced Communities class is designed to empower graduate students and future social work practitioners to transform their communities. Students manage and complete all aspects of their semester-long projects. In the past, students in the class have worked closely with community organizations such as Haven for Hope and the Center for Health Care Services to better the community.
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Learn more about the UTSA Department of Social Work, housed in the College of Public Policy. For more information about the Advanced Communities class, contact Emmett Gill.
Learn more about Transform Your Health SA.
Connect online at Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and UTSA Today.
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