Delores Collins, affectionately known as “Ms. Dee”, Executive Director of A Vision of Change, approached the CTSC with an opportunity to help facilitate accessibility and inclusion in service delivery. . (AVOC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1993. AVOC’s vision is to “assist in breaking the cycles of literacy, poor health, teen dropout, youth imprisonment, and poverty.”
According to the Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, approximately more than a half-million people throughout the United States use American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate as their native language. “We serve a growing deaf and hard of hearing population in Cleveland and its surrounding communities. It is important to us that we are able to effectively communicate with everyone that we serve,” said Ms. Dee. She added,”We’re really enjoying the class and learning a lot.”
Community health workers at A Vision of Change participate in a 10-week American Sign Language Course delivered by Timothy Skaggs, Director of the Community Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing at the Cleveland Hearing & Speech Center, at Bethany Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio.
Ms. Dee is a Community Co-Investigator on a 2024 CTSC READI Themed Pilot Project, with Kurt Stange, MD (ǿմý), Promoting Research Equity by Diversifying Clinical Trial Enrollment: A Vision of Change Community Health Worker CTSC Pilot. Read more about Ms. Dee’s pilot and the other nine projects here.