Althea Marshall Brooks

Althea Marshall Brooks currently serves as the Executive Director of Waterbury Bridge to Success (BTS)
Community Partnership in Waterbury, Connecticut.
A native of Waterbury, Mrs. Brooks is guided by an ardent commitment to holistic excellence and service. Since
her appointment in the Fall of 2017, Althea has led Waterbury Bridge to Success's overall strategic approach.
Under her leadership, BTS has intentionally shifted power to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color),
youth, and caregivers to increase community-based engagement. Althea's ability to streamline collaborative
action supports BTS's mission of ensuring the city’s youth and families have access to quality education and
support for their social, emotional, academic and economic development and success. Her prioritization of
shifting power to those with lived experience and increasing intentional community engagement has propelled
the systems transformation work of the organization.

Since joining in 2017, BTS partnerships have increased by 50%, the leadership team and staff are reflective
of the served community and has cultivated an advanced racial equity agenda across the partnership including
key partners like Waterbury Public Schools, Trinity Health of New England/St. Mary’s Hospital, Waterbury
Health, U.S. Department of Education and Connecticut Department of Labor to name a few. This work has
expanded to include a robust health equity agenda that addresses the disparate outcomes experienced by
black and Latine residents in Waterbury including maternal and fetal morbidity/mortality in addition the
increased depression and anxiety adversely and disproportionately affecting the aforementioned populations.

The result was an award-winning documentary – When the Water Breaks: A Conversation about Black
Maternal Health in Waterbury, a five-year multimillion dollar invested in educational equity in six city schools
and a four-year initiative with Trinity Health of New England to address health disparities in Waterbury.

Prior to her appointment, she served as the CEO of Empower New Haven, the Community Services
Administrator for the City of New Haven and the New Haven Public Schools Director of Coordinated School
Health, where she was responsible for $30 million in community economic development strategies,
comprehensive services that served youth, homeless, and public health, and several large-scale initiatives in
the district to improve health and wellness for students, staff, and the broader community, respectively.
Additionally, she served as adjunct faculty at Gateway Community College for over a decade.

Her commitment to servitude is evident. She is a member of the Gathering Place Community Church. She sits
on various boards and committees locally and statewide including the Gateway Community College
Foundation Board; Chair, HealthBridge Foundation; Waterbury Black Giving Circle, Governor’s Blue-Ribbon
Panel for Child Care, CT OEC Commissioner’s External Review Committee, The Governor’s Workforce
Council, Emerge Connecticut, Inc., City of Waterbury Diversity Committee, City of New Haven Homeless
Advisory Commission, and the CT Health Foundation Maternal Health Advisory Committee.

Mrs. Brooks obtained her Bachelor of Science Degree from the School of Family Studies at The University of
Connecticut, a Master of Science Degree in Sociology from Southern Connecticut State University, and a
Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School. She is the proud wife of Darrell and mother/bonus mom
to DJ, Paige, and Chelsea