Get Involved with Wellness
Community Health Organizer Team
The community health organizers (CHO) are a peer education group dedicated to making Smith College a community that values individual and community health. We promote our core values around health equity and social justice through community education. We dedicate ourselves to providing accurate health information, fostering open and safer environments, debunking myths around health and well-being, diversifying the wellness dialogue, and combating ableism, fatphobia, systemic racism, and gender politics in our wellness work. The group’s mission is to promote healthful and whole lifestyles for all members of the Smith community by providing community education and support so that everyone in their own identities and bodies can feel their best, advocate for their own needs and thrive in and out of the classroom. We facilitate interactive workshops, dialogues and programs on diverse topics from sexual health/sexuality, alcohol and other drugs, to dealing with and managing our mental health through school, among others.
CHO Trainees
Our Trainee CHO program is the training program to become a community health organizer. A selected “junior” CHO must apply to the program and shadow the CHO team for six months to learn the ropes. We loosely follow the medical school training model of “See One, Do One, Teach One”—a junior CHO watches for a few weeks by offering support to CHOs for their programming, then they facilitate with a mentor for a few more weeks until they graduate into the Teach One as a full-fledged CHO the following fall.
Five “junior” or trainee CHOs will be selected to work closely with the current CHO members and the director of wellness each spring semester. They will be expected to continue to serve as CHOs, post their semester of training the following school year. Applications are typically due in the fall semester.
If you are interested in applying to be a CHO, email wellness@smith.edu.
CHO Open Hours
CHOs are current Smithies who are dedicated to promoting health and well-being at Smith! CHOs are available for peer-to-peer meetings to discuss navigating your wellness while balancing being a student.
If you’d like to speak with a CHO, email wellness@smith.edu and we can connect you with a peer.
Programming
The Community Health Organizers have a variety of peer-lead health education programming they are happy to share with houses, organizations, sports teams, and other groups on campus. The CHOs have training on topics which include healthy relationships, stress, sleep and more.
For a full list of CHO programming or to ask about having a CHO present for your group, email wellness@smith.edu.
Project Connect
Project Connect is a structured, low-stress way to make new, authentic connections with people outside of your usual social circles. Those who choose to participate will meet with a small group of other students and a peer facilitator once a week for five weeks. You will be guided through each one-hour session by your peer facilitator who will have questions and activities that are designed to build empathy and connection within your group.
We are excited to continue to bring this programming to students. Here’s what previous semesters’ participants had to say about their experience:
“It was so valuable and fun to meet once a week with a group of people I genuinely liked and trusted, and talk about things you generally wouldn't talk about with anyone outside of the project.”
“It was super sweet. We were all honest and supportive, and I felt like I really bonded with my peers.”
“The structure [of the program] made the conversation feel less stressful/forced because it wasn't as hard to come up with something to say.”