This is a big week for Community Health Centers as they celebrate their 50th anniversary and get ready to gather in the Nation’s Capitol for their annual conference. The kick off starts tomorrow morning at a national news conference hosted by NACHC.  NACHC will release its policy report, Community Health Centers Past, Present and Future: Building on 50 Years of Success, at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation’s Barbara Jordan Conference Center. The report will contain new projections of the impact of the health center funding cliff. Several health center representatives from around the country will talk about the impact of the funding cliff on their health center. The press conference will be live streamed from this link. The report will also be available online tomorrow following the news conference.

The health center funding cliff will also be a key focus at the 2015 NACHC Policy and Issues Forum (NACHC P & I), which is expected to draw over 2,500 health center professionals, clinicians, board members, advocates and experts. Speaker highlights at the NACHC P & I include: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Presidential Historian and Author; William V. Corr, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; Judith Monroe, MD, Deputy Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;  Dr. Mary Wakefield, Administrator, Health Resources and Services Administration; Tom Daschle, former Senate Majority Leader and Founder of The Daschle Group. For a listing of conference events please visit this link.

We also want to give a shout out to our friends at UCLA Asian American Studies Center and the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO).  They are also marking the 50th anniversary of health centers with an event tomorrow at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to launch a special issue of the AAPI Nexus Journal that will reflect upon the history of the development of health centers, and how far they have come. The event is called “From Safety Net to Model Quality Care for All: Commemorating 50 Years of Community Health Centers,”  the AAPI Nexus Journal launch of a special issue on Federally Qualified Health Centers serving Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities. The event starts at 4 pm. To register please visit this link.