Founder and Former Executive Director

Catalyzing Innovative Vision

An innovative thinker, future-trends forecaster and vision catalyst, Mr. Armstead had extensive experience as a provider of HIV/AIDS services and as an HIV/AIDS educator. He was the Executive Director of Working For Togetherness (WFT), a 501(c) 3 Community Based Organization (CBO) which he founded in 1999 to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS within the African American Community. After years of holistic thought, Clifford assessed the current trend of HIV and set out to pioneer new approaches to individual, group and organizational transformation through holistic strategic visioning, strategizing highly innovative risk reduction concepts to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. The concept for the agency’s name was due to his desire to work purely from an inter agency collaborative perspective. He often stated AIDS is not his disease to conquer, but our disease to vanquish, and this could only be accomplished by assembling community based agencies, individuals, faith based institutions and businesses to work from a state of wholeness. Mr. Armstead believed that individuals and organizations could achieve far-reaching and long-lasting successes through collaborative efforts.

Under Mr. Armstead’s leadership, WFT provided health education and HIV prevention, government affairs, client and community services, fund development, finance and communications. Most recently WFT opened the Youth Empowerment Center on the west side of Chicago. The center serves as a beacon of light for adolescent, same gender loving African-American males. The center serves as a place of refuge for teenagers faced with self identity issues, stigma and daily life struggles.

As a nationally recognized prevention expert, Mr. Armstead served as a resource to several agencies including South Carolina’s HIV/AIDS Council, Street Works agency, Memphis TN, The Indianapolis chapter of The Urban League, Brothers United and the Indianapolis Department of Public Health. Our Common Welfare in Atlanta GA, Minority Health Consortium in Virginia; The Rain Agency in Columbia, MO; provided technical assistance and other prevention efforts through his Community/Mobile Tech Outreach Initiative. Most recently he provided capacity building and technical assistance for the City of Chicago’s Department of Public Health training for the “Mass Access Project” (MAP), an initiative to provide counseling and testing services to a large volume of individuals at health fair/community events requiring Rapid HIV testing.

Mr. Armstead served on several planning committees with the mission of implementing HIV/AIDS strategies for communities. He believed that, with the right tools and right thinking, we could get a handle on the spread of the disease. Using imagination, intuition and intelligence, individuals and organizations can realize their ideas and make a meaningful, long-term impact in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention.

In his role at WFT, he worked with the Illinois Department of Public Health Planning Committee Group and Region VII Implementation Planning Group to develop priority setting recommendations. He was a voting member and also, a member of Youth Network Council /Illinois Collaboration on Youth.

Mr. Armstead was a graduate of the CDC’s Associated School of Public Health in Atlanta, Georgia. He was a national educator/trainer for the CDC’s VOICES/VOCES program, the National Diffusion of Effective Behavioral Interventions (DEBI). Possessing a broad HIV/AIDS knowledge base, receiving the following certifications: African American Red Cross HIV/AIDS Instructor; Assessment & Referral Specialist (CARS); Addiction Counselor (CADC); Pre/Post-Test Counselor; Prevention Case Manager; STD for Urine Base Screening; ADAPT Street Outreach Trainer; Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

In 2001, he received the Jewel Osco “Hidden Jewels” award and the Illinois Department of Public Health “Taking It to the Streets” award” in recognition of his community service and innovative method of providing HIV/AIDS prevention services. Harry Porterfield featured Mr. Armstead on his on air show “Someone You Should Know”. His organization is, one of the few, currently participating in the Center For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC’s) first HIV Rapid Testing Pilot program sponsored by the Chicago Department of Public Health and the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Mr. Armstead was a proud servant of the community, raised in one of the most underserved public housing projects in the United States “Cabrini Green”, he gave back to those whose hands reached out to him when he was most in despair by recycling the art of community giving.