Yolette Bonnet is a former New Yorker who now lives and works in Palm Beach County, but she clearly is someone who dwells in the realm of possibility. As Chief Executive Officer for the Comprehensive AIDS Program (CAP) of Palm Beach County for the past five years, Bonnet has spearheaded an organizational transformation for that agency, improving the lives of some of this regions most vulnerable residents in the process, and promising to impact far more lives in the future.
For her efforts, Bonnet has been named as a 2006 recipient of the prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leadership Award, given to just ten individuals across the nation, from a field of 300 nominees. According to Catherine Dunham, Ed.D., Community Health Leadership Program director, “The awards honor ten people who have demonstrated, through ingenuity, perseverance and social commitment, that improving the health and well being of people in their communities and giving voice to those who may need help in raising their own, can be achieved.” Honorees receive $120,000, the bulk of which is used to enhance the organization and its programs.
Front (Left to Right): Jeanette Gordon, Tara Brown, Yolette Bonnet (Executive Director), Huberle Gregorie
Back (Left to Right) Joyce Vilceus, Larry Leed, Nicole Fahrenholz, Linda Tilghman, Rik Pavlescak, Martha Allen, Mike Machonis, Danara Nelson, Robbin Rodriguez, Ron Vosatka.
The Comprehensive AIDS Program is part of the Comprehensive Community Care Network and FoundCare, an organization that serves those who lack insurance and access to health care. Palm Beach County has one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the U.S., with 1 in 166 people living with HIV/AIDS. CAP provides services to approximately 3,000 persons infected with HIV/AIDS, and reaches an additional 10,000 people through education and prevention programs. CAPs services include HIV testing, case management, a drop-in center, and a referral service that assists clients in obtaining food, housing, mental health care, substance abuse treatment, home care and transportation. Outreach programs offer HIV/AIDS education sessions for groups, community mobilization and peer education.
In 2001, the CAP staff recognized the need to expand their services and space, and had already developed a strategic plan. Bonnet was brought on board to help make that dream a reality, but after assessing the communitys needs and resources, she inspired the staff to envision a more ambitious change. Larry Leed, Deputy Director of CAP, says that, until Bonnets arrival, plans for the new center were relatively humble. “Our original plan was for a small center to serve our clients, with a medical office and five exam rooms. Yolette asked why this region did not have a community health center, and showed us how the model would work here, based on her experience in Brooklyn. She saw the broader needs of the families.”
As a result, CAP is developing a non-profit, non-government, federally-qualified community health center, in collaboration with Florida Community Health Centers and FoundCare, and will use the RWJ grant to supplement $414,000 in funding already in place from the Quantum Foundation. The center will serve all those in need, providing essential medical specialties, including pediatrics, dentistry and family health. The center is expected to open in September 2007.
Tim Henderson, vice-president for programs for the Quantum Foundation, nominated Bonnet for the RWJ award. “Yolette is an incredibly talented, positive person who has turned CAP around. She spoke to us, not simply about funding for her organization, but about the whole system and the broader health care needs of South Florida.”
For Bonnet, health care access is a deeply personal issue, born of her own experiences.
“I want to make a difference, to impact change,” she says, “because I know what can happen to those who lack resources. My mother, Brigitte Bonnet, was an immigrant who had no health insurance. She concocted her own medicines, brewing teas to treat herself. But she had high blood pressure and died of a massive stroke.”
That loss galvanized Bonnet. Her mother had guided her away from a tough adolescence, facilitating her exposure to a different world through a federal transition-to-work program. “I knew nothing about the corporate world,” she recalls, “but I learned how to dress and behave in a workplace, and I got a job at Met Life.” The mother of four, who went to college at age 25 while caring for three little children, acquired a wealth of experience in the front lines of public health. Her first job involved tracking the contacts of people with sexually transmitted diseases. After that, she was an HIV counselor, giving test results to clients and helping them cope with their emotional responses to the information. “I saw too many people die, and it made me angry, but I learned how to channel that anger and do something positive,” Bonnet says. She went on to get a masters degree and became an administrator within a community health center in Brooklyn.
Advocating for the vulnerable and underserved became her passion. “It is satisfying for me to see people get their needs met. Many of our clients have little material goods, but they are people with integrity. My job is to help them get free of whatever is entangling them and to help keep them intact and healthy.
“Most of our clients have had limited experience and are often unaware of opportunities. All they need is a chance, just like I did. What they dont know is what is possible.”
Bonnet does know, and she helps others find those possibilities and fulfill themselves. She speaks with great pride about her own children: Jasmine, age 24, in medical school; Rachel, age 21, and Jonathan, age 20, attending college; and Raphael, age 12, in school in Florida and about the achievements of the “awesome” CAP team.
According to Larry Leed, “Yolette is a special lady, and she won the respect and the hearts of everyone here. We have a great workplace, with real dialogue, open doors and a deeply committed team. To Yolette, the RWJ award is not about her, but about the team and the work that we all do.”
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