Dana Williams is a Founder and Executive Director of The Community Wellness Project (CWP). She has been in the field of HIV/AIDS/STDS since 1987 and has an established history in providing Capacity Building Assistance (CBA) to community based and AIDS service organizations as well as state and local health departments around the country. As a public health consultant, she has extensive experience in writing, developing, implementing and evaluating many HIV/AIDS/STD programs and training curriculums including; Prevention Case Management, Effective-Street and Community Outreach strategies, and Community Mobilization.

Ms. Williams has years of experience in managing Federally Funded grants and contracts and continues to serve as a national training partner for the Center for Disease Control, the Office of Minority Health and the Office of Women's Health. Ms. Williams is a master-level trainer for the American Red Cross HIV/AIDS Instructor Course in both the African American and Fundamentals programs and is considered a trainer of trainers for many CDC programs including Sisters Informing Sisters about Topics on AIDS (SISTA), Real AIDS Prevention Program (RAPP) and Popular Opinion Leader (POL). She has served as a volunteer for the American Red Cross, for over 15 year and has officiated on many local and national advisory boards.

Joan R. Ferguson is a founder of the Community Wellness Project and a Capacity Building Assistance Specialist with the Midwestern Prevention Intervention Center of the African American Prevention Intervention Network (MPIC~APIN), a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded project designed to assist community based organizations and health departments in the United States with adaptation, implementation, quality assurance, and monitoring and evaluation of effective evidence based  HIV prevention interventions. An HIV/AIDS prevention education specialist who is nationally certified by the American Red Cross as an African-American HIV/AIDS Instructor and Instructor Trainer, Ms. Ferguson is also certified in both Missouri and Illinois to provide HIV/AIDS counseling, testing and referrals.

 Ms. Ferguson has developed, written and facilitated several workshops and trainings around HIV/AIDS prevention education, condom negotiation, and sexual wellness with particular regard to high-risk heterosexuals, substance users, men who have sex with men (MSM), and the recently released and formerly incarcerated in communities of color. She also has extensive experience writing and implementing HIV/AIDS/STI prevention programs and training curriculums including: 

• Community Mobilization: Are You Ready?
• Condom Use and Safer Sex Negotiation: Prevention for Positives
• Cultural Competency: Addressing HIV/AIDS, Stigma and Denial in the African American Community
• Effective Street and Community Outreach for African American MSM

 Ms. Ferguson is a certified facilitator of, and National Training Partner for, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Evidence Based Interventions, the Real AIDS Prevention Project (RAPP), the Sisters Informing Sisters About Topics on AIDS Project (SISTA), and VOICES/VOCES. In this capacity, she is one of only four national lead trainers for the SISTA and RAPP interventions.

 Ms. Ferguson also has an extensive background in journalism, media/public relations and social marketing. Her work has appeared in national publications including Essence.

Mr. Howze has over 20 years of experience in the field of HIV/AIDS. He began this work as a psychotherapist, in Dallas, Texas, counseling individuals with HIV/AIDS, and was a contributing author in the book titled Care for the Caregiver edited by Ted Edison. He has also coordinated substance abuse programs for men with HIV/AIDS and participated in the early pre and post HIV antibody test counseling after the HIV antibody test was developed.

Mr. Howze also participated in the first federally funded longitudinal behavior change study for African American gay and bi-sexual men. Mr. Howze supervised the Ryan White Titles I and II system of case management for St. Louis City for over six years. Mr. Howze is also an excellent facilitator and trainer. He has designed and implemented many educational training sessions for professionals and community members. He is a Nationally Certified Master Level Instructor Trainer in the African American HIV/AIDS Training Course through the American Red Cross. Mr. Howze has presented workshops at a number of conferences such as AIDS in the Heartland, the U.S. Conference on AIDS, and the National Conference on Social Work and HIV/AIDS.

Currently, Mr. Howze is a Founder of The Community Wellness Project. He has provided Early Intervention Services such as HIV Antibody Counseling and Testing, as well as screening for Syphilis and other health disparities, to under-served and under-represented people of color in the St. Louis Region (including Illinois).