About Us

The Community Health Training Institute (CHTI) provides targeted skills development to individuals and teams working to build healthy communities in Massachusetts. We customize our in-person trainings and webinars  around core competencies that include: Coalition Building; Leadership; Policy and Systems Change; Communications; Health Equity; Youth Development; Strategic Planning and Evaluation.

The Training Institute is a partnership between the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) and Health Resources in Action (HRiA), funded by MDPH.

Our overarching goal is to increase the capacity and skills of community health leaders and stakeholders to build and sustain coalitions and partnerships that support healthy communities and actively address systemic racism to improve health outcomes across the Commonwealth.

Staff

Training Institute staff members are experts in creating, planning, and evaluating high-impact training experiences. Because we are seasoned community health professionals, we understand your unique training needs from firsthand experience.

"The facilitators were fun, knowledgeable, engaging, and accessible."
Training participant

"[I liked that there were] lots of resources and discussion to help break down complex concepts with more approachable language and examples."
Training participant

"The trainers' examples, brainstorming in breakout groups, and hearing other groups' brief reports to the large group were all helpful in looking at the issues in different ways and getting the juices flowing to produce new ideas."
Training participant

Daisy Ortega

Managing Director (she/her)

Daisy Ortega, M.Ed, serves as the Managing Director at the Community Health Training Institute. In this role, she ensures the development and delivery of an innovative, high-quality set of training services. She develops and monitors the work and budget; manages the team; and provides overall project direction and vision.

about Daisy

Daisy is a Managing Director of Health Resources in Action’s Training and Capacity Building Department. In that role, Daisy works tirelessly to deliver cutting edge capacity building programs centered on youth development, program improvement and planning and community building and mobilization. She has developed and presented various trainings and regularly facilitates discussion on topics such as: the positive youth development approach, community organizing and building, public speaking, conflict resolution and violence prevention, supervising youth, program and project planning and team building among other topics. Additionally, Daisy provides technical assistance to individuals, programs, organizations and funders to integrate the youth development approach model into their practice and programs. Daisy received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a Master’s of Education (M.Ed.) from Lesley University.

Allyson Shifley

Associate Director (she/her)

Allyson Shifley, MPH, is an Associate Director in the Capacity Building Assistance Cluster at HRiA. She previously held positions with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Lahey Clinic, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, and Lewisham Refugee Network in Lewisham, UK. Ms. Shifley has over 10 years of expertise in program management, youth development, training and facilitation, racial equity, curriculum development, and out-of-school programs. She has a Master of Public Health from Boston University School of Public Health with dual concentration in social and behavioral sciences and maternal and child health. A creative and experienced facilitator, Allyson develops and facilitates health and racial equity workshops both locally and nationally on topics including implicit bias, white supremacy culture, and racial justice.

about Allyson

Paula Giraldo

Program Associate (she/her)

Paula Giraldo is a Program Associate in the Health and Racial Equity team at HRiA. In her role, she provides project management, relationship-building, and technical assistance to statewide municipal campaigns, including the Community Health Training Institute. Recently, Paula led the development of environmental health training modules through Healthy Environments Advance Learning. Prior to joining HRIA, Paula served as a Public Health Associate at the Centers for Disease Control, focusing on environmental health and asthma through her work in the Massachusetts Asthma Action Partnership. She also brings a depth of program implementation, curriculum development, and supervisory experience from her prior role as Director of Education at University Blood Initiative. Born in Colombia, Paula is a native Spanish-speaker and has experience facilitating with hispanophone groups.

about Paula

Victoria Nemeth

Administrative Coordinator (she/her)

Victoria graduated from Northeastern University with a B.S. in Health Science, and she is currently pursuing her Master of Public Health (MPH) at Northeastern. She joined HRiA as a co-op student with the LEAH Project and has since joined the CHTI team as an Administrative Coordinator. She is passionate about public health work, and has interests in health policy, advocacy, environmental health, and youth development work.

about Victoria