Westhaven Clinic Collection • UVA Nursing History Center

Descriptive Summary

Repository: University of Virginia School of Nursing, Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry

Title: Westhaven Clinic Papers

Physical Characteristics: 1.5 linear feet; 4 boxes

Language: English

Collector: Sharon Veith

Biographical Information

The Charlottesville, Virginia, Westhaven Public Housing project opened to residents on December 14, 1964. Nearly thirty years later, in 1993, the University of Virginia School of Nursing established a grant-funded Community Nursing Center at Westhaven intended to provide primary health care to residents in addition to offering clinical education programs for the school’s nursing students as well as opportunities for clinical research projects. The completion of the grant in the spring of 2000 led to the center’s closure. A significant collection of materials concerning the clinic during this period may be found in the Bjoring Center’s Doris Glick Papers.

Since the Community Nursing Center’s usefulness to public-housing and low-income residents had been amply demonstrated over the years of the UVA School of Nursing-sponsored project, a group of concerned citizens, public agencies, organizations, and churches united to form the Westhaven Clinic Coalition in May 2000, with the objective to reopen the clinic and develop strategies to sustain its operations. The Virginia Organizing Project agreed to serve as funding conduit and financial manager for the clinic, and along with substantial assistance from the Public Housing Association of Residents (PHAR), the UVA Women’s Place, the Sexual Assault Resource Agency (SARA), Martha Jefferson Hospital, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Trinity Episcopal Church, and the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority (CRHA), the clinic reopened, largely with volunteer labor, in August 2000. With the sustained assistance of numerous additional individuals and entities, the Westhaven Clinic expanded operations and continues to provide nursing services, health and life skills information, access to resources, and a strong sense of community for the residents of Westhaven and others.

Scope and Content

The Westhaven Clinic Papers, taken as a whole, constitute an ideal model of a successful, health-based community organizing project. While materials span a roughly two-decade period between the late 1990s and 2020 — encompassing the final years of the clinic’s formal University of Virginia School of Nursing sponsorship — the bulk of the papers centers on the first five years of the clinic’s successor incarnation, led by the Westhaven Coalition. Of particular importance are extensive correspondence records for each of these five years, 2000 to 2004. These detail every aspect of the organization campaign, including consideration of the clinic’s mission and activities, its potential sponsors and funding sources, and its personnel and management. Included also for this period are detailed budgetary and financial statements as well as a nearly complete collection of the coalition meeting agendas and minutes, again with greatest representation in this first five-year window. A series of clinic operations folders detail activities and resources available to clinic visitors, along with limited management and charting strategies and an immunization campaign that terminated with the closure of the UVA-sponsored facility. Statistical reports trace clinic usage for selected years. A small portion of material concerns the faith-based parish-nursing model of operations that characterized the clinic during this initial phase, particularly under the leadership of Holly Kerr Edwards, RN, of the Martha Jefferson Hospital, who also served as a Charlottesville city council member and vice mayor before her untimely passing at age 56 in 2017.

Series Description

The Westhaven Clinic Papers are organized alphabetically by general subject category and chronologically under each subject heading.

Contents List

BROCHURES

2000-2010 Box-Folder: 01-001

BUDGET AND FINANCIAL RECORDS

2000-2001 Box-Folder: 01-002

BUDGET AND FINANCIAL RECORDS

2001-2002 Box-Folder: 01-003

BUDGET AND FINANCIAL RECORDS

2002-2003 Box-Folder: 01-004

BUDGET AND FINANCIAL RECORDS

2003-2004 Box-Folder: 01-005

BUDGET AND FINANCIAL RECORDS

2006-2009 Box-Folder: 01-006

CONTRACTS

2003-2015 Box-Folder: 01-007

CORRESPONDENCE

1999 Box-Folder: 01-008

CORRESPONDENCE

2000 Box-Folder: 01-009

CORRESPONDENCE

2001 Box-Folder: 01-010

CORRESPONDENCE

2002 Box-Folder: 01-011

CORRESPONDENCE

2003 Box-Folder: 01-012

CORRESPONDENCE

2004-2009, 2011 Box-Folder: 01-013

CRESCENT HALL AND JEFFERSON AREA BOARD OF AGING (JABA) ITEMS

1990s-2006, n.d. Box-Folder: 02-001

EDWARDS, HOLLY KERR ITEMS, INCLUDING “THE HISTORY OF THE WESTHAVEN COMMUNITY”

2000-2003 Box-Folder: 02-002

FOUNDING DOCUMENTS - PRINCIPLES, WESTHAVEN CLINIC COALITION

1999-2002, n.d. Box-Folder: 02-003

GRANTS: APPLICATIONS

1999/10/18 - 2012, n.d. Box-Folder: 02-004

GRANTS: ENTITIES

2002-2005, n.d. Box-Folder: 02-005

MEETINGS - MINUTES: CLINIC COALITION AND UVA SCHOOL OF NURSING

1999-2000 Box-Folder: 02-006