Internship at the Washtenaw County Health Department

Carrie Rheingans

You know you’re a public health dork when… you leave a two-hour meeting at your internship with your head buzzing about the possibilities of health promotion programs in your community. For my social work field placement this academic year, I’m placed at the local health department, Washtenaw County Public Health. On my first day of orientation to SPH, I remember hearing someone say that if you’ve seen one local health department, you’ve seen ONE local health department – meaning that each local health department is so different from the next that there aren’t many generalizations that can be made about them. WCPH is fortunate to be able to do many health promotion programs that are in addition to their mandated public health duties as required by state or federal regulations.

Our division meeting included updates on a number of health promotion programs, from smoking cessation and healthy eating to biking to work and substance use prevention. It was reassuring to hear a lot of terms I’ve been learning in my graduate studies, and to see how health programs operate in my local community – instead of just reading about it from research articles. One staff member gave a report from a presentation at  statewide conference she had recently attended in which a health communication campaign out of Jackson, Michigan was discussed. I had heard about this campaign before in my health communication course last fall – it was a final project option for some of the students in my class! It was nice to see it come to fruition and be lauded across the state. You can learn more about it on their website – Most Teens Don’t!

Most Teens Don't Logo

Another major topic of the meeting was a big grant we’ve been writing for the last couple weeks for the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH). It’s been a fun process being part of this grant proposal. The MDCH has funded 16 community organizations and local health departments over the last year to do planning in their communities for addressing health disparities among various ethnic populations. Washtenaw County was funded to work with African-Americans and Latinos, and we just submitted our proposal for the next phase of the grant – implementation. Even if we don’t get funded, it was a great learning experience to be able to work on developing the programs for the Latino-focused part of the proposal, as well as the evaluation plan. I got to apply what I learned in HBHE 651 (Program Development) and what I’m learning right now in HBHE 622 (Program Evaluation), in addition to many of the theories I learned in HBHE 600 (Psychosocial Factors in Health-Related Behavior) and SW 502 (Organizational, Community and Societal Structures and Processes).

Field Placement Bringing my Dual Degrees Together

 

Carrie Rheingans

 

My current social work field placement is really bringing my two degree programs together. I’m a dual degree student – doing a Master of Public Health in SPH (in the department of Health Behavior and Health Education) and a Master of Social Work at the School of Social Work. I’m studying Community Organization and Community & Social Systems in social work. There are many dual degree options for students in public health, and it can be a really great investment if you want to work in multiple fields.

This is my third and final year of the dual degree program, and I’m happy that my courses and field experiences are really coming together in my learning. For my public health department, students usually do a 3-4 month field placement between their two years. I did a year-long placement at the HIV/AIDS Resource Center as an AmeriCorps member for the National AIDS Fund’s national direct AmeriCorps program in Detroit. For a social work degree, students can elect to do either two field placements (one each during each academic year) or one longer-term placement (from January – December of one calendar year). Most students elect to do the single placement, but I elected to do two.

This year’s placement is at the Washtenaw County Public Health department and I’m working with a number of community members to develop a Latin@ community center, Casa Latina, for Washtenaw County. I’m applying coursework in both schools that has covered grant-writing, program development, program evaluation, community participation, multi-level interventions, social marketing, survey design, materials creation, leadership development, and community organization and development. It’s nice to be able to apply what I’ve learned, and even combine some tasks at my field placement with current coursework. For example, for my program evaluation class, my final project is to create an evaluation plan for a health program – which is one of my tasks for a grant I’m writing at my placement. For another class, my final project is to create a community participation plan, which is something we need to do for Casa Latina anyway.

It’s great when I get to do public health practice during the semester and apply the things I’m learning in the classroom to the real world. Sometimes I wish there was a larger field component in public health, but there are definitely options for getting more real-world practice if you look for them.

My Last First Day of School

Carrie Rheingans

Today’s my last first day of school and it’s been a great one so far! It’s sad to think that this long journey will be over in eight short months, but I know I’ll be happy to be done and start applying all the wonderful knowledge and skills I’ve learned in my two degree programs, public health and social work.

I always feel so optimistic at the beginning of a new semester – like maybe this time I can actually do all the reading! I’m very excited about my two public health classes this semester (EHS 500 – Principles of Environmental Health and HBHE 622 – Program Evaluation in Health Education). The environmental health class interests me because of the material and my background in the biological sciences, and the program evaluation class because it’s a valuable and transferable skill in the field(s) in which I’ll be working upon graduation.

I’m also excited to start teaching again. Last semester was my first being a graduate student instructor (GSI), and I really learned a lot, both about being a teacher and about being a student. I gained a lot of patience and improved my skills for speaking publicly and making sure people are following what you’re saying. I also learned how to better manage my time as a student, as well as what amount of work goes on behind the scenes in the classes I take. I also learned that while teaching is fun, grading is NOT fun. The worst part is that my midterms are at the same time as the ones I have to grade – which doesn’t make it easy to study for my own classes.

The other exciting development this semester is my field placement for social work. I’m working with the Washtenaw County Public Health Department to help develop a Latino community center for our community (Washtenaw County, the county in which the University of Michigan is located). Currently, there is no such organization that caters to people of Latino/Hispanic ethnicity or Spanish speakers.

I hope to write posts this year about my public health and social work classes, my field placement, teaching, and my passion, HIV and AIDS. Stay tuned!

Michigan Community Conversation for a National AIDS Strategy

Carrie Rheingans

Michigan got its chance to give feedback to the White House Office of National AIDS Policy on Wednesday, 18 November 2009. From across the state, providers, people living with HIV, and people affected by HIV came and gave their recommendations, suggestions, and demands on video tape and in writing.

I was the statewide organizer for this event as part of my social work internship at the HIV/AIDS Resource Center (HARC). This experience was the perfect combination of public health and social work that I hope to gain from my dual degree program (MPH/MSW). When the nationwide community conversations were announced, many people across Michigan wondered why we didn’t have one scheduled near us, especially considering the fact that some zip codes in Detroit have higher HIV prevalence than some countries that receive emergency money form the United States government. The Campaign to End AIDS contacted me after hearing from a few outspoken Michiganders and we did a lot of grassroots organizing in a few short weeks to pull off this successful event. See the Between the Lines article and the Michigan Messenger article for further coverage.

The conversation was only two hours long, and the majority of the time was occupied by community members speaking about what they wanted in a National AIDS Strategy. The night started with welcomes from Craig Covey, Ferndale mayor (Ferndale is the city where the event was held) and longtime staff member of the Michigan AIDS Coalition, Christine Campbell and Larry Bryant of the Campaign to End AIDS, and Charles Pugh, President-elect of the Detroit City Council. Charles also moderated the event.

Below are some of the things people told the White House:

“When is the last time we got together as a community of loving, living people when funders weren’t making us?”

“We need quality healthcare for LGBT people living with HIV and AIDS – we need to strengthen doctor-patient relationships because people are not comfortable coming out to their doctors”

“Viagra and Cialis have aided in the resurgence of sexually transmitted infections in senior housing complexes. We need more education and prevention in these locations”

“The church, rid of stigma, denial and fear, becomes a change agent”

“my barrier [to being an AIDS advocate] is childcare”

“I wanted post-exposure prophylaxis and the nurse didn’t even know what it was!”

“We need the same laws coast to coast – enough with a patchwork of different laws about HIV”

“I missed class tonight to be here on my birthday to tell you that we need rec centers for our kids to have something safe to do after school”

“Michigan prisons don’t hand out condoms or test for HIV when people are released – but we know that people are still having sex and they need to get tested because they might need to get right into care”

It was great to hear people from as far away as Kalamazoo, Flint and Lansing gathering to speak out about such an important issue.

Larry Bryant from the Campaign to End AIDS introduces the event as moderator and President-elect of the Detroit City Council Charles Pugh looks on

White House Office of National AIDS Policy Coming to Michigan!

Carrie Rheingans

The White House Office of National AIDS Policy is coming to Michigan to host a Community Conversation, in which they will receive feedback and testimonies of people affected by HIV about what should be included in a national AIDS strategy. The Campaign to End AIDS (C2EA), the Black AIDS Institute, and the National Association of People With AIDS (NAPWA) are also supporting the event. I’ve worked with C2EA for the last two years, particularly with their Youth Caucus and the Youth Action Institute, and I will be the Michigan-based contact person. See my previous SPH blog posts about this year’s YAI here and here.

The event will allow people to provide 1-2 minute testimonies about their experiences with HIV (as someone living with HIV, affected by HIV, or working in the field), and what they think should be included in a national AIDS strategy. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is a program through which the US government supports work to turn the tide against the AIDS epidemics in various hard-hit countries. One requirement to receive PEPFAR money is that each country must have a national AIDS strategy – which the USA itself doesn’t even have! These community conversations, happening all over the country, will help inform the eventual national USA AIDS strategy here at home.

You can give testimony yourself at the event:

FREE ADMISSION

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Affirmations Community Center

290 West Nine Mile Road

Ferndale, MI 48220

(248) 398-7105

For more info, please contact me at crheinga@gmail.com or leave a message at 734-572-9355 x238

You can also give testimony online. Please register for the event here. Naturally, I’m very excited about this opportunity! Very rarely does such an easy opportunity for policy advocacy happen, and even more rarely can I work on it as part of my social work internship! This opportunity gives me a chance to flex both my public health and social work muscles!

Now I’m a Dual Degree Student

Carrie Rheingans

I’m now officially a dual degree student in the School of Public Health (SPH) and the School of Social Work (SSW). I’m studying Health Behavior and Health Education in SPH and Community Organizing and Community & Social Systems in SSW. I started in SPH and applied to join the SSW after my first year because I wanted to learn more about community-level work. There are a few really great classes in SPH about community-level work, but I wanted more. The dual degree programs are great, because you can get both master degrees in a shorter amount of time. Some classes cancel out requirements from the other program, so it saves money and time in the long run. Since U-M has so many great graduate programs, it’s a great addition to your professional training. There are a number of dual degree programs you can do with public health.

Social work is often divided into two major fields – micro practice and macro practice. At U-M, the SSW micro field is called Interpersonal Practice and the macro field is broken up into three separate tracks: Community Organizing, Management of Human Services, and Policy & Evaluation. To do the dual MPH/MSW, you have to be in the HBHE department in SPH. Some students do the dual MPH/MSW because they feel that public health is very broad and macro-level, so they want to learn more how to work one-on-one with individuals and families. Some feel that HBHE focuses on individual behavior change and not enough on community-level change. After talking to the other nearly twenty dual degree students, we realized it is really up to your interpretation. I’m very happy I added the MSW, but I’m still very excited about my future public health courses that I have left (especially my course HBHE 640: Community Organization for Health Education!).

Each school has their own webpage explaining the dual MPH/MSW, see them here: SSW page –  SPH page

2 Former Surgeons General Visited Campus!

Dr. Joycelyn Elders and Dr. Richard Carmona were at U-M for the Practice Office’s 5th Annual Practice Office Symposium on January 27th.

15th US Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders and 17th US Surgeon General Richard Carmona

This was a really fun event to attend! It was interesting to hear the opinions of former politicians about their political duties. The theme that kept coming back to me was what Dr. Elders kept saying: “We don’t have a health care system in this country, we have a sick care system!” As someone who studies public health, I have learned the many reasons to act preventively, from the financial to the overall health of society. Dr. Elders also mentioned that many politicians have already made up their minds about the political ramifications of their votes, and their mentality tends to be “Don’t confuse me with facts – I’ve already made up my mind!”

Carrie Rheingans

Dr. Edelman was the first speaker, and she kept talking about getting out of our “silos” and working with people who work in many academic fields.  Having gone to U-M for undergrad, I heard about this frequently.  There are many opportunities on campus to work across departments, as well as multi-disciplinary degrees.  The U-M SPH has many dual-degree options for those of us interested in interdisciplinary work. I just submitted my application to do the dual-degree program with the School of Social Work, so I’m naturally a little biased

I found it very interesting that Dr. Carmona’s desire to do some obesity prevention programs met many walls until he framed it as a national secruity issue.  He said that once he started talking about the fitness of firepeople and other first responders and how so many people fail the physical fitness tests for the armed forces, he started getting money to try to create physical fitness programs. He also talked about a “Medical Reserve Corps”, similar to the PeaceCorps and AmeriCorps, that would have members serving at clinics and other medical facilities across the country to forgive a part of their loans.  As a current AmeriCorps member, I fully support this idea (and maybe they can have a path for recent public health grads?).

The Ann Arbor News and The University Record both covered the event if you’d like to read more!