Wanted: More Leaders Like This

Lachell Wardell was born with the deck stacked against her, surrounded by poverty and violence: from her early years in the notoriously dangerous Chicago housing projects to the domestic violence that killed her mother, to a foster family whose abuse forced her into homelessness at age 14.

But Wardell didn’t let her story end there. Three decades of hard work later, she is a trained pharmacist working on a master’s in public health – and a member of the inaugural class of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Clinical Scholars national leadership program. Her passion? Stopping the cycle of violence and trauma.

“I needed more than just my diplomas and degrees,” she says. “I needed to be the solution for those who have no voice.” For Wardell, that means those like her younger self: disadvantaged youths, disproportionately from communities of color, who face barriers at every turn.

Research shows that these barriers – from poverty to failing schools to the daily threat of danger – can affect our health a lot more than what happens in a doctor’s office. Young people exposed to violence are more likely to face chronic disease and mental illness, and to live much shorter lives. In fact, homicide is the leading cause of death among black 10- to 24-year-olds, the second-leading cause of death for Hispanics of the same age; and the third for American Indians and Alaska Natives. And aside from the steep human toll, the CDC estimates that youth violence costs the nation $18.2 billion a year.

As someone who has both studied and lived that truth, Wardell is leading a project to seek out at-risk youths in Ferguson, Mo., and promote a path away from violence and toward health. Through mentorship, clinical screening, and life-skills training, she hopes to home in on a model that will help ease violence among young people across America.

Like any smart leader, Wardell knows that she won’t solve a problem this big alone: “One thing that I have learned in my journey from the streets of Chicago to this point in my life is transformation starts with collaboration,” she says. So she’s teamed up with leaders at the Believers Temple Word Fellowship in St. Louis to recruit and connect with teenagers from poor, minority neighborhoods. It’s with the church’s help that Wardell believes the program can catalyze the most important change: a feeling of hope.

It’s hard to understate the importance of this kind of leadership: forward-thinking, compassionate, and informed by lived experience. As we mark Black History Month, especially, health professionals like Wardell deserve the nation’s thanks for digging in to solve our wicked problems, which often take a bigger toll on communities of color.

RWJF’s leadership development programs help equip professionals like Wardell to build stronger, healthier, more equitable communities – right where they are. Participants build experience collaborating across sectors, advocating for change, and combining data-driven research and on-the-ground work in communities. And even after the program ends, alumni find themselves connected, as professionals and as friends, for a lifetime.

An alum of the first RWJF Clinical Scholars program myself, I couldn’t be more thrilled to see clinicians like Wardell in our new leadership programs – or more excited for more of you to join our ranks. So if you or someone you know is poised to lead an effort to help make sure that everyone in our nation has the chance to live a healthier life, please see the descriptions of the four programs below, or use our new interactive tool to help you find the right program, and apply.

After all that she’s been through, Wardell says Clinical Scholars is the perfect fit to help her give back. “Leaders work towards a goal greater than themselves,” she says. “The vision of a violence-free society is much bigger than myself.”

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