About Us

Graphic with words fairness, awareness, compassion, and excellence.

Core Values

Fairness is restoring balance to social situations where it has been lost or bringing balance where it has never been established with a focus on dismantling power imbalances.
Awareness shines the spotlight on realities kept hidden and voices silenced as a result of U.S. historical and prevailing social system.
Compassion seeks engagement and connections; and
Equity is the thread that we strive for in our ideologies, brand and praxis.

We seek to put a FACE on the experiences of Black, Indigenous and People of Color within the context of historical and prevailing social structures.
Our practice model is community-focused, culturally responsive and justice oriented.

Wellness

The World Health Organization (WHO) conceptualizes health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." CWI concurs and expands on this definition with the following, "Wellness is a state of complete, physical, psychological, social, communal, cultural and spiritual well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity. Well-being or wellness is no longer relegated to measuring by economic standards but takes into consideration the fundamental rights of people—the respect and honoring of human dignity" (Palmer, 2023, p. 8).

References:

Palmer, G. (2023) Looted artifacts and museums’ perpetuation of imperialism and racism: Implications for preserving cultural heritage. American Journal of Community Psychology, 1-9,

https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12653

Mission

We believe communties are not problems to be solved---they are sources of knowledge, wisdom, and possibility. CWI is a community-centered research, learning and consulting organization that works at the intersection of community knowledge, culture and action. We partner with other communities and organizatons to understand the social and structural conditions that influence well-being and co-create solutions grounded in the knowledge and lived experiences of the peopler most connected to the work.

We are different in that we center communities as knowledge holders and co-creators---not simply research participants or recipients of services. We bring primary research and praxis together with community knowledge to highlight what is often overlooked, challenge conventional ways of knowing and being, and offer strategies that are meaningul, culturally grounded and sustainable.

Vision

A world where communities hold the knowledge, power, and resources needed to shape healthy, just, and liberated futures. We see a world that is unlimited in its love, grace and celebration of all.

Leadership Team

Geraldine (Geri) Palmer, Ph.D.

Co-founder- CWI has over two decades of professional experience in senior and middle leadership within human services agencies primarily focused on housing and homelessness services. It is this work that is the impetus behind Dr. Palmer's current mission to disrupt and dismantle inequitable social relations, structural systems of oppression and spaces that result in social and racial injustices such as the overrepresentation of Black/African Americans in the homeless system. Ongoing work include raising awareness around inequities in our society such as language that "others" and silences voices, and better understanding the biopsychosocial effects of historical or intergenerational trauma specifically among contemporary African Americans. This understanding fuels action. Her work is grounded in the intersection of a revolutionary conscious praxis (RCP). critical community psychology, and Black/African American cultural capital, historical contexts, community life and liberation. In addition to helping lead CWI, she is an Assistant Professor at Adler University, Chicago where she teaches community psychology, a diversity course, and a course on race, ethnicity and social class.

Todd Rogers, MA

Co-founder - CWI has 20 + years experience building and supporting IT, commercial, and medical operations organizations in the pharmaceutical sector. His work includes strategic partnering in designing evidence-based operations from an organization's values, mission, and strategy statements to function and role definition to cross-functional processes and practices complete with performance management objectives and measurement structures; His work has a strong emphasis on group collaborative intelligence and cross-functional process innovation. Todd is integral in advancing CWI's work through operations and fiscal management, creating systems models, research design, data gathering and analyses, project management and consulting.

Loraine Palmer-Snead, M.Ed., MS

Independent Consultant. Loraine is the owner of LPSnead Consulting, LLC and is an accomplished professional with extensive leadership and teaching experience in a range of learning environments including public, charter, and independent schools. She is trained by the National SEED Project to empower educators, students, and parents to help make schools, curricula and teaching modalities more gender and multiculturally equitable and just. Loraine facilitates workshops, leads initiatives and other projects hosted by LPSnead Consulting, CWI and its partners.