Cindy Weber
Detection-Connection-Intervention Project Coordinator & Community Health Worker at SPAN Parent Advocacy NetworkSouthern Ambassador for the New Jersey Community Health Worker Association
About SPAN Parent Advocacy Network
SPAN Parent Advocacy Network (SPAN), a family-serving, parent-led organization located in Newark, houses NJ’s federally-designated Family-to-Family Health Information Center, Parent Training and Information Center, and Statewide Family Engagement Center. Since 1987, SPAN is proud to have been the first stop for families across the state for support and resources.
Our Vision
SPAN’s vision is that all families will have the resources and support they need to ensure that their children become fully participating and contributing members of our communities and society.
Our Mission
Our mission is to empower and support families and inform and involve professionals interested in the healthy development and education of children and youth.
Our Commitment
Our foremost commitment is to children and families with the greatest need due to disability or special health/mental health needs; poverty; discrimination based on race/ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, language, immigrant or homeless status; involvement in the child welfare or juvenile justice systems; geographic location; or other special circumstances.
Empowered Parents: Educated, Engaged, Effective!
– SPAN’s Motto
At SPAN, our Family Resource Specialists are more than highly trained Community Health Workers. They are parents, caregivers, and family leaders who have personally navigated many of the same challenges faced by the families they support today. By combining professional expertise with lived experience, they offer support that is compassionate, practical, and deeply informed by understanding and empathy.
Because they have personally navigated complex healthcare, education, and community systems for themselves or their loved ones, SPAN’s Community Health Workers understand not only the systems families must manage, but also the emotional burden that often comes with navigating them alone. They know how overwhelming it can feel to coordinate care, advocate for services, understand insurance coverage, manage school support, and make difficult decisions all while caring for a child or family member.
This shared experience allows SPAN Community Health Workers to build strong, trusting relationships with families. They are skilled at helping families identify their strengths, navigate options, and access information, guidance, technical assistance, and emotional support that can help them achieve their goals. They understand the many factors that can affect a family’s awareness of and ability to access services, including language and cultural differences, transportation needs, financial pressures, and complex systems. They work alongside families to help them build confidence, strengthen self-advocacy skills, and connect with meaningful support and services.
Through SPAN’s warmline, families, professionals, and community members can connect directly with SPAN’s Community Health Workers with lived experience. Whether someone needs help understanding their child’s rights, accessing services and resources, navigating healthcare or education systems, or simply needs someone to listen, our warmline provides trusted support, reliable information, and meaningful connection during uncertain or stressful times.
SPAN Community Health Workers are also deeply rooted in communities throughout New Jersey. Through partnerships with hospitals, healthcare providers, schools, county and state committees, advisory groups, and community organizations, they help strengthen collaboration between families and systems of care. These relationships make it easier for families to access coordinated, responsive, and community-based support while also strengthening their leadership and advocacy skills.
The impact of this work is seen every day in meaningful ways. Parents gain a better understanding of their child’s healthcare and educational rights. Families connect to Early Intervention services when developmental concerns arise. Students remain successfully included in their community’s schools. Families preparing for adulthood receive guidance and support while navigating transition planning and adult services.
As the Southern Regional Ambassador for NJCHWA, I personally experienced the value of this support long before I became part of the work myself. I first came to SPAN when I desperately needed help understanding how to access care for the rare genetic disorder shared by my children and me. A patient staff member walked me through the insurance appeals process and helped me understand exactly who I needed to contact in order to access the specialty clinic my family needed.
That support changed everything for us. My children were finally able to receive high-quality care from providers who truly understood their condition. Instead of leaving appointments confused and unsure about how to help them or feeling forced to travel across the country for fragmented care and clinical trials, we were finally able to access consistent treatment much closer to home in Philadelphia.
Four years later, I now find myself on the other side of that phone call, supporting families who are earlier in their journeys, just as someone once supported mine. The patience, guidance, and lived experience shared with me by SPAN Community Health Workers became the foundation for the work I now do with others.
At the heart of SPAN’s work is the belief that families are stronger when they feel informed, supported, connected, and empowered. By centering lived experience within community health work, SPAN helps parents and caregivers build confidence, strengthen advocacy skills, and become educated, engaged, and effective partners in supporting the health and wellness of their children, families, and communities.
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