Meet our New Director of Practice Operations, Community Sites

Q&A with Alkema Jackson

After a year of serving as Practice Manager of West Baltimore, Alkema Jackson is moving into the new role of Director of Practice Operations, Community Sites!

Alkema brings to the role an extensive background in operations—she was the Co-Owner and Operations Manager of a contracting company for seven years before transitioning to the health care field. In 2019, she became Chase Brexton’s Training and Development Manager, overseeing staff development at locations across Baltimore and Maryland. Alkema joined Health Care for the Homeless in 2022 as the Client Access Project Coordinator, collaborating across departments to help more people connect to agency services, and in 2023, she received a Core Value Award for Hope.

Alkema is currently pursuing a B.S. in Health Services Management from the University of Maryland Global Campus, with the aim of building her skills in strategic decision-making and operational leadership.

Read on to learn more about Alkema’s approach to this new position…

What led you to enter the health care field, and why focus on serving underserved communities?

I come from a family rooted in service—military, law enforcement, healthcare and community work—so serving others has always been core to who I am. Early in my career at Johns Hopkins in East Baltimore, I was confronted with health inequities that challenged my privilege and clarified my purpose. Working within the Federally Qualified Health Care (FQHC) model, first at Chase Brexton and now at Health Care for the Homeless, showed me what it truly means to serve everyone and meet people where they are. That experience continues to guide how I lead and serve today.

In your new role, you'll oversee practice operations for our West Baltimore and Baltimore County sites, as well as Weinberg Housing and Resource Center. What are the biggest changes to your responsibilities?

The biggest change in my responsibilities is the shift between doing and designing. As a Practice Manager, much of my time was spent executing work directly with the team, and that remains important. However, as a Director, I am increasingly responsible for shaping how the work happens. It is a continual balance of staying close enough to the ground to understand operations, while remaining high enough to see patterns, guide strategy and design systems that support sustainable performance.

How do you plan to adapt to differences in client access at our community sites?

Each community site serves clients in a different way, and access needs to reflect that. For example, Fallsway benefits from walk-by visibility, so we can lean into same-day access and on-the-spot engagement. West Baltimore and Baltimore County do not have that same foot traffic, which means access there relies more on intentional scheduling, referrals and outreach. Also, some clients are more comfortable receiving care in these smaller or quieter settings.

My approach is to meet clients where they are by adapting how we offer care at each site—using visibility as a strength where it exists, and prioritizing consistency, trust and planned access where it does not—while still holding all sites to the same standards of quality and service.

What are some of the most valuable lessons you learned from serving as Practice Manager for our West Baltimore site?

When I stepped into the practice manager role at West Baltimore, I inherited a team that had experienced significant turnover in leadership. That taught me the importance of slowing down, listening and truly getting to know people—both as individuals and as employees—especially when a team has been with the organization longer than you have. I learned that leadership isn’t just about advancing stakeholder priorities; it’s also about healing, educating and steadying a team so they can perform at their best.

In what ways are we connecting with the neighborhoods around our community sites?

In Baltimore County, case managers do outreach in local libraries and our nurse engages shelter clients while providing occasional street medicine. In West Baltimore, our case manager stays closely connected to the community, pulling resources and linking clients to care. We also partner with local organizations: nurses at Westside Men’s Shelter help route clients into appointments; Grace Medical Center’s Community Nursing Team connects us with individuals from the Emergency Department experiencing housing vulnerability; and we have a great referral system with a transitional housing program for medical and dental care. As Kevin Lindamood says, “Onward we go.” In 2026, I move onward with Senior Director of Client Access and Operations Muhammed Mamman, Director of Community Relations and Engagement Malcolm Williams and Call Center Manager Lisa Lefavore to deepen our community sites’ neighborhood connections over the next two years.

Outside of work and school, what activities bring you joy or help you unwind?

I love to cut up with jokes all day and make people laugh. I enjoy spending time with my small circle of friends—church, brunch and trips together. At home, my husband and I love movie nights with card games and dominoes. For creative outlets, I write poetry and work on my mini podcast on Swell.

Congratulate Alkema when you see her!