CHAD Connection

Each year, CHAD celebrates with our member health centers during National Health Center Week, and this year, we’re excited to unveil a fresh new theme and look that honors all our commitment to community health in the Dakotas and within our country.

This year’s theme is “From Community Roots, to A Healthier Tomorrow” —a statement for all of us that we are ingrained in North Dakota and South Dakota as vital lifelines for over 136,000 individuals across 52 different communities.

National Health Center Week will be held from August 3–9, 2025, across the country at health centers just like ours in the Dakotas, but we like to up the ante and customize our theme, messages, and resources so they speak directly to our health centers, their staff, and their patients.

On Thursday, July 31, CHAD is proud to host an exclusive first look at our new campaign video featuring our health centers! This special screening will mark the kick-off for this year’s National Health Center Week. We encourage all health centers to attend or schedule a special group watching event at your location for this premiere! Register for the event here.

If you’re familiar with our CHAD Store on our website, you know we have a great variety of apparel and other gear with designs and messages custom to our health centers. To help celebrate NHCW in 2025, we are extending a special 10% discount on all items within the store from Thursday, July 3 until Sunday, August 10. Use the code NHCW2025 when placing your orders to receive the discount.

Read the full story below to learn more about National Health Center Week and the resources CHAD will be unveiling.

Coal Country Community Health Center was awarded the 2025 RCOOL Health Scrubs Camp of the Year at this year’s Dakota Conference on Rural and Public Health in Bismarck, ND.

Family HealthCare is among the organizations to receive Opioid Settlement Grants awarded by North Dakota HHS, with which they’ll implement a sustainable model for screening and initiating Sublocade treatment for individuals with Opioid Use Disorder during incarceration and post-release at Cass County Jail in Fargo, ND.

This episode of Monument Health's Vital Conversations podcast interviewed Complete Health CEO Tim Trithart to emphasize the vital role of federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) in expanding access, integrating care, addressing mental health, and navigating insurance and financial sustainability.

Northland Health Centers’ new Northland Cares program offers a simplified sliding-fee model that improves access to medical, dental, and behavioral health services.

Northland Health Centers celebrated staff with their annual picnic and cornhole tournament.

Horizon Health’s “Play Proud, Cheer Loud” initiative encourages health centers to proactively schedule summer sports and school physicals—helping distribute patient visits before fall rush and ensuring timely preventive care for youth athletes.

Health centers have the opportunity to join the South Dakota Perinatal Quality Collaborative (SDPQC)’s BIRTH-SD-AIM initiative, which provides evidence-based tools, coaching, and resources to improve care for pregnant and postpartum patients with substance use disorders and mental health conditions.

Join us for this practical session designed to strengthen a health center’s credentialing and privileging processes. Whether you’re new to the topic or need a refresher, we’ll break down the key HRSA expectations, common pitfalls, and how to create systems that don’t just check the boxes but truly safeguard your patients and providers. You’ll walk away with clear action steps, compliance tips, and tools you can use immediately.

NACHC will be considering health centers to sponsor during National Health Center Week to host events.

Criteria to be considered for a $500 sponsorship:

Host a NHCW event that is open to the public. (Submit your event to the NHCW website no later than July 7, 2025.)
Invite elected officials at the federal and state levels to visit your health center.
Use social media to promote NHCW events with the hashtags #ValueCHCs and #NHCW25.

Health centers that are selected to receive a NACHC sponsorship will be notified by the end of July.

NACHC’s Elevate national program is looking for the most promising and proven practices driving transformation across the health center system. If your team is making strides in one of 15 key areas — from care delivery to infrastructure —this is your moment to shine.

Fifteen $6,000 awards for Best Practices and six $1,000 awards are randomly selected from overall submissions. Apply now and help shape the future of health center practice transformation! Deadline: July 11, 2025, at 11:59 pm ET.

We invite you to help CHAMPS recognize exceptional health centers and outstanding staff and board members from health centers and related organizations in Region VIII by submitting a CHAMPS Award nomination. Awardees will have demonstrated exceptional contributions to the community health center movement through their leadership and dedication to the mission.

Please submit nominations for the following 2025 CHAMPS Awards categories:

Emerging Star

Excellence in Innovation (honoring a Region VIII health center organization)

Exceptional Administrative Leadership

Exceptional Board Leadership

Exceptional Clinical Leadership

Exceptional Legislative Leadership

Outstanding Advocate of the Underserved

Stanley J. Brasher Legacy

Download the fillable 2025 CHAMPS Awards Information & Nomination Form for more details about each award and the overall awards process.

Nominations are due by Friday, August 1.

CHAD offers associate memberships to organizations whose work aligns with its mission to foster healthy communities by promoting and supporting programs that increase access to affordable, high-quality care for all. Primarily, associate membership enables participants to gain more affordable access to CHAD events and trainings, to receive exposure with CHAD members, and to support the CHAD mission. Organizations that may consider associate membership include:

Organizations with a similar or aligned mission;

Vendors with an interest in raising brand awareness with CHAD members;

Organizations that are interested in partnering with CHAD or CHAD members; and

Those who want to support CHAD’s work in the Dakotas.

Intimate Partner Violence Screening with DRVS

Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects millions of individuals across the United States, with nearly 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men experiencing severe physical violence, stalking, or psychological aggression by an intimate partner. IPV remains underreported and under-screened in healthcare settings, despite its association with long-term negative effects on health and social functioning, including chronic pain, depression, PTSD, gastrointestinal or genitourinary disorders, and decreased social connectedness. As trusted healthcare providers, health centers play a critical role in identifying IPV, ensuring access to necessary interventions, and enhancing coordination with community partners. In this session, DRVS will focus on how health centers can effectively leverage existing DRVS tools and explore new functionality to improve IPV screening, tracking, and care coordination, ultimately enhancing patient outcomes and ensuring high-quality care delivery.

Thursday, July 10

1 pm CT/12 pm MT

Optimizing Patient Care: Exploring Empanelment Tools in DRVS

When it comes to creating patient-provider assignments, there are many factors to consider - supply and demand, full time providers vs. part time providers, residency programs, patient choice, risk distribution and provider burden - the list goes on. However, traditional EHR systems have limited ability when it comes to accessing the information needed to consider and integrate these moving targets. During this DRVS session, participants will learn about the measures available within DRVS that can help your practice make more informed decisions around patient-provider assignments and put your data into action to advance population.

Tuesday, July 22

12 pm CT/11am MT