1. Describe in detail, how each of your goals and objectives, listed on your contract
It was a privilege given by the University of Northern Colorado, School of Human Sciences, placing me at the Human Services Program, as an intern, with the agency-North Colorado Health Alliance (NCHA); which is coordinating the Weld County Community Health Campaign-Make TODAY Count! Supported by, the grants from Kaiser Permanente and the Colorado Health Foundation. This is a three-year campaign launched in June, 2013.
After obtaining internship contract, I contacted the faculty supervisor and the academic advisor to discuss my assignment for internship. I contacted the field supervisor and assisted him in scheduling the initial meeting and negotiated contract terms such as work schedule, job description etc.
During the internship, I had a wonderful opportunity to work with Mr. / Ms, the agency supervisor, Mr. / Ms, my field supervisor and Mr./Msas my faculty supervisor / coordinator. In consultation with all supervisors/coordinator, I set the following broad goals for my internship work at North Colorado Health Alliance:
- Learning and observation of the programs and activities provided by the NCHA in order to serve the health needs of the Weld County Community. Further, to identify the health issues in the community that was adapted by the Human Services Agency. To identify the roles of the community service organizations.
The primary goals of the Make TODAY Count! Campaigns are:
- Increase in healthy eating.
- Increase in active living.
- Increase in individual and community well-being.
The main objective of the Make TODAY Count! is, to make the Weld County Community to attain phenomenal all-round growth while the main thrust being ‘good health to all’ and to compete with other communities in this aspect.
Taking –off with my internship work, I started playing a prominent role, by participating in the community’s activities, because I am aware that my first sincere move will have to be getting connected to the people of the community, if I have to know them intimately and understand their problems/ issues, better. Health issues in my country and the basic information about my city was the first thing I related to the Weld County Community to look for any similarities; as advised by my advisor. I have drawn a Power Point Presentation which has information and statistics about the general health in my country, such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. In addition to this, resource guide for women’s health in Weld County community was one of the target ideas in my mind. But the North Colorado Health Alliance, suggested me to focus on the ideas benefiting both the agency and the community as such. Therefore, I have drawn a list of ideas for the project, such as Bookmarks which has a simple health message to women which contains steps to get moving; the Fact sheet about physical activities and info-graphic posters about physical activity. Further a Power Point Presentation about health issues in Saudi Arabia, especially in Qatif city and plastic hang-tag or brochure about steps to do self-examination of breast was given by me. All these ideas focus on making physical activity a daily-routine healthy habit which is too important in every single normal person’s life.
My keen interest in doing a project for the Weld County’s woman community has driven me to do a lot of research and reading about some relevant organizations that can help women in the health aspect. I started to work with Olivia who had a special program called “first steps program”, a management program for the pregnant women. I visited various clinics such as Public Health Department and Sunrise Community Health to meet the clients in order to learn more and more about the program. I had an opportunity to attend and observe few classes, in this connection, which was a good start for me to determine my special project.
Resource guide for women’s health in Weld County community was the first idea in my mind since I was much interested in women’s health which depended on what NCHA needs. I started on researching on some ideas towards these interests in mind. Later on I had a meeting with Dr. Vincent (Chief Operating Officer) in this regard and gave some ideas for the project that will focus on women’s health in physical activity. My advisor liked the ideas that I projected, especially the resource guide for women’s health in Weld County community, and thinks that it is a good project for the NCHA as also the projects of Bookmarks –some steps to get moving and the fact sheet about physical activities. Two out of the three ideas for projects, Bookmarks and
Fact sheet, were easy to implement. The benefits of these ideas educate people about the importance of physical activities in their daily life. The Bookmarks have simple steps to get moving even if one is busy and the Fact sheet has the right information about physical activities such as jumping which involves every muscle in the body.
My one big project was the resource guide for women’s health in Weld County. I have prepared a list of organizations involved in women’s health care services; with their addresses and website and contact information. To ensure that complete information of all these services is available to the community, I made a systematic and categorized list.
First of all , I made a list of organizations pertaining to women’s health care such as SAVA-Sexual Assault Victim Advocate, FIRST STEPS-Supports women throughout their pregnancies, WIC- women, infants and children at Sunrise community Health, Cancer Care at North Colorado Medical Center, Bright Beginnings program at United Way of Weld County and the Resource Center for pregnancy & personal health.
Secondly, I interacted with all these above organizations, through email to fix up an appointment to meet them and prepared a questionnaire for them to answer if had a chance to meet them. Besides, I started working with Olivia on her program ‘First Steps’ and asked my advisor to allow me to do training to know what I could do individually. To work for this goal I, during my free time inside the office, did a lot of research and reading and gained knowledge about the organizations in Weld County and interacted with many of them through emails for personal meetings with them. These meetings were fruitful, in that I got good inputs for my projects.
The meetings with the organizations proved very informative and helpful. For instance, before the meetings I had no good idea about their actual services, but after the meetings, I became aware of the factual position which was very useful for my internship work. To quote an example, before I met Jennifer form SAVA agency, I did not know what the agency was exactly about and there services. But after the meeting and discussions I was educated about all the help that could be given to the clients and victims of sexual assault. Similarly, after meeting and talking with Mary from the NCMC Breast Cancer Center I was enlightened about the free library facility for breast cancer education. In view of all these, I think attending meetings is a wonderful way to get benefited by others’ experiences and awareness about their services.
The outcomes and deliverables from this project are in abundance for me and for different agencies in the process of helping women, in particular, and the community in Weld County in general.
The target group for resource guide is for women’s health in Weld County community. The objective of this project is to help all women and their children in the County by submitting the resource guide manual which has got good information about different age-groups for which different services such as counseling, education, child development, home and safety, free services for pregnant women and providing food and services to people in need. This project is unique and the interesting part is that most of the services were identified and made available after my interaction with the agencies concerned to ensure authenticity of the services and their credibility. As a result of these efforts of mine, the resource guide is helpful to different agencies on a long-term basis and to all ethnic groups of women in need.
B: KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT:
1. Discuss theories of various human services (i.e., community health, gerontology and /or rehabilitative services) and
Human Services
Community Health Service (CHS): One of the major programs that any state or government needs to give top priority to, is the community health. The CHS which is basically a public health genre; concerns chiefly with the study of health characteristics and its improvement of biological communities. They are often focused on geographical territories rather than just, people with shared characteristics. The graphic information system (GIS) is extensively used to examine the health characteristics of a community. Projects like GEOPROT combined with GIS and INFORSHARE; give access to any participating community. Health III, defined as well being, is dependent on a wide range of socio-demographic characteristics and the factors like age-group, overall life expectancy of the community etc. Good and quick access to Medicare, Public Health campaign publicity, pave way for timely medical interventions. Research efforts in the recent past have delved into the aspect of environment and socio-economic status affecting the health of the representing community. The study of community health can broadly be done under three categories. 1. Primary Health Care. 2. Secondary Health Care 3. Tertiary Health Care.
The community health services have the following sub-categories for a better concentration level: 1. Population Health. 2. The role of economic inequality. 3. The importance of family planning programs. 4. Population health management. 5. Community mental health service and 6. Online - health communities.
My internship at North Colorado Health Alliance (NCHA) agency has given me enough experience and exposure in the study and participation of various health programs and campaigns held at Weld County Community. I set the following goals for the learning contract in the internship work with the NCHA:
- Learning and observation of the programs and activities provided by the NCHA for the health needs of the community.
- Provide assistance in the preparations and participation in the activities of the community.
- Contribute to the workshops and programs designed to serve the community.
While at the NCHA I have targeted the Weld County’s women community for a start, by drawing a special project such as Bookmarks and Fact Sheet. The Bookmarks has a simple health message for women regarding Steps to get moving, while the Fact Sheet is all about physical activities and info-graphic postures about physical activity. I took advantage of my knowledge in the Saudi Arabia’s health programs brochures that gave details about easy steps to do the self-examination of the breast to check for cancer/ tumors etc .Further in consultation with Dr.Vincent, the Chief Operating Officer I made use of the “Resource Guide for Women in Weld County Community” which served as a wonderful manual for the women’s ‘health. In the process of utilizing the Resource Guide, I listed out the addresses and contact details of various organizations that were very helpful to women’s health care and also made sure that each woman in the Weld County Community was given a copy of the Resource Guide for self-help.
There were many charitable/ voluntary organizations concerned with woman-health care, that I interacted with to promote healthcare awareness and implementation of programs that benefited women in the Weld County; such as SAVA- Sexual Assault Victim Advocate, FIRST STEPS—supports women throughout their pregnancies, WIC- women, infants and children at Sunrise Community Health, Cancer Care at North Colorado Medical Center, Bright Beginnings program at the United Way of Weld County and Resource Center for Pregnancy & Personal Health.
I had a total involvement in the NCHA’s Make TODAY Count! Campaign at Weld County Community whose primary goals were, 1. Increase in healthy eating. 2. Increase in active living and 3. Increase in individual and community well-being. Indeed Make TODAY Count! Campaign which was mainly focusing on health concerns on the day-to-day basis, was quite a practical approach and was well received and appreciated by the community. I have gained a lot of practical knowledge and experience in the field of community health.
My study of Human Services course at undergrad level at UNC and also the internship at NCHA have immensely helped me participate in the community health programs and campaigns effectively and prepared me to handle any big events in healthcare and other human services activities without any difficulty.
B.2. Offer critical assessment (positive and negative) of.
The North Colorado Health Alliance (NCHA)—AGENCY:
The NCHA’s brain-child- Make TODAY Count! is what I observed, a very innovative campaign to help the Weld County improve and build into a stronger & healthier Community.
The philosophy of the campaign is to make people cultivate the habit of living a healthy life by every single day and together make the ‘weld County Community the healthiest by 2020.
The main focus of Make TODAY Count! Campaign is on the growth of ‘active living’, ‘healthy eating’ and ‘well-being’ state of the community, eventually. For this purpose, a goal is set to involve and engage people in making simple choices every single day for a better and healthy tomorrow.
Ultimately, the Weld County Community should emerge as a strong and healthy community and promote well-being by offering high quality life to the people; because a healthy community is safe, well-informed and has the power of making right choices with strong bondage with one another. Enjoy a meaningful, purposeful and healthy life.
The NCHA has systematically organized for the healthcare of the underserved people in Weld County by exemplary work culture. Yet there is a significant gap in that only 10% of the overall health condition is directly related to health care segment of the economy.
The behavior of the individuals and the non-medical factors influence the behavior of the community and contribute to the vulnerability. NCHA is committed to make reforms in education, public policy and business practices to correct the Social Determinants of our Health (SDOH). The agency believes that these social reforms and total integration of health; will certainly yield high standard and quality care; reduced costs, improved health results to make a prosperous community.
B.3. Evaluate the impact of any significant cultural..
At North Colorado Health Alliance (NCHA), the socio-economic, historical forces in the community have influencing effects on its services or mission. NCHA a community joint venture stands on four strong pillars, which are, access to care, workforce and organizational development, integrating infrastructure and accountability.
The partners of NCHA and the agencies that are participating in the Make TODAY Count! - A Community Health Campaign, are leaders in their own right in the promotion of greater view of the complex factors contributing to the health of the community. The integration of other community services and health; the continuous and innovative programs and readiness to take on various diverse projects, reflects the understanding the health aspect as a single puzzle attached with many interlocking pieces. Keeping the community’s health as the prime objective, the NCHA has penetrated into varied fields of socio-economic, cultural and historical importance and their integration, eventually, as its goal. The NCHA programs include:
Make TODAY Count!
Community care corps.
Integrated information Technology.
Regional car collaborative organization
Colorado Adult Medical Quality Measure
Project- Launch
C. SKILL DEVELOPMENT:
C.1. In relation to your stated learning objectives, what skills were?
Developed by virtue.
In the first placel, I got some deliverables, which are useful in my career ahead, from my project for the internship. I learned from research and reading about many organizations, besides right attitudes towards work and the people I worked with such as the staff from different communities. Next I developed some communicative skills through my work and interaction with North Colorado Health Alliance which is a very rewarding experience for my future career and goals; especially after working on the Make TODAY Count! Campaign at Weld County Community.
Learning and observation through the community health programs was a good break for me and this boosted up my confidence levels significantly. I am now able to identify the problem areas in the community healthcare which is adopted by the agency and its role of the community services. Assisting the agency in the preparation and participation of the community activities was a rewarding experience. I have learnt a great deal of skills and theories in health promotion activities while working with people from varied cultural and social background in the community. My contribution to workshops and programs designed to serve the community has added to my ability to organize events for promotion of public health through educational programs and develop solutions to the health issues in the community.
It was a great opportunity to have interaction with the communities and supervisory staff both at the agency and the university. It was a morale-boosting and motivating internship that I had; as I could learn a great deal of social aspects of life through it.
My intern work period was very enjoyable as it was filled with a lot of enthusiasm and commitment to community’s healthcare and gradually the people there could count on me for any help or assistance, especially the women and children. My voluntary services were felt as indispensible because most of them were unhappy that I had to leave the community after I finished my internship. A classic example was that I was given a grand farewell with a souvenir and lot of bouquets on my last day at the community services center.
Finally I learned great perseverance and empathy for others out of my internship at NCHA.
C.2. what specific competencies do you feel that you now
After the internship with NCHA- a very reputed and successful organization, I have developed many working skills which will enable me to take-off in life with all the confidence and courage in my career goals. I am emboldened by the interactive sessions that I had with participants of various programs and campaign in the weld County Community. I am now in a position to mingle with any groups of people in the communities and effectively interact with them to achieve the desired goals.
I have developed organizing skills to confidently participate in any events or programs conducted for the old-aged groups of a community and win their good will.
Most important thing that has happened to me after my internship experience; is that I am very comfortable with the ‘accent’ of the native English-speaking population and can converse freely with them and understand their way of speaking, in a much better way.
D. ATTITUDINAL DEVELOPMENT:
D. 1. What attitudes have either been strengthened or modified .
In spite of my aptitude for community services work since adulthood; I have been an introvert and shy type. I had inhibitions about mixing freely with strangers in particular for fear of difficult communication issues and disability in English language speaking, understanding and comprehending. Being an international student I had issues with ‘accent’ of the native English students and professors.
But after my internship at NCHA, there is a phenomenal improvement in not just my attitude, but in whatever I said or did or participate in. The tremendous strength I drew from my association with our supervisors at school as well as the agency and with other coordinates; is a touching experience for me and will be a memorable transformation in my life.
On the academic side, I had learnt much in areas of communication skills, organizing skills, coordinating abilities and above all, good public relations having spent most of the time of my internship on interaction with the Women and Children of the Weld County Community to which I shall always be thankful, for giving an opportunity to learn many good things in life.
On the personal growth area, I have learnt the English language and its appropriate usage with a greater ease than before and I can now easily comprehend the subject matter and spoken language much better than what it was before I started the internship.
I am now a totally changed person in my attitude and outlook of life and confident of facing any challenge or difficult task smilingly.
Works cited:
1. Community health- the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. <http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_health>.
2. Population health-Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. <http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_health>.
3. Community mental health service- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_mental_health-service>.
4. Online health communities-Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_health_communities>.
5. Gerontology-Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerontology>.
6. Rehabilitation-Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation>.
7. Our Services-Services to People with Disabilities. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://www.vadrs.org/services.htm>.
