UNC Center for Maternal and Infant Health
Faculty Field Instructor: Sarah Verbiest, MPH, MSW, DrPH
The Center’s mission is to improve the health of North Carolina’s women and infants through quality clinical services, provider and patient education, research, advocacy and state leadership. The activities at the Center are varied, allowing trainees to design internships around their areas of interest and skill enhancement goals. Trainees have participated in learning activities such as needs assessments, program development, grant writing, project evaluation, research design, data collection and analysis, coalition development and maintenance, and public health campaign design. Trainees also have the opportunity to participate in major statewide meetings on key issues in maternal and infant health. To learn more about the Center for Maternal and Infant Health, please visit www.mombaby.org.
Project Style
Faculty Field Instructor: Marcie Fisher-Borne, MPH, MSW
Project Style is a collaborative project of UNC School of Medicine, Alliance of AIDS Service-Carolina, and NC Central University. It is funded by HRSA's Special Projects of National Significance. The project addresses the disproportionate and increasing HIV prevalence in the southeastern United States among young men of color, particularly Black men who have sex with men, and systemic barriers in access to health care, through an HIV prevention program, outreach and education, and support and client services. In 2007, a trainee developed an assessment tool to improve the cultural competency of health service providers at local university student health clinics and an evaluation of a training curriculum for Disease Intervention Specialists (DIS) at the Department of Health and Human Services. Both these projects were designed to increase health providers’ ability to work with and support the needs of LGBTQ clients, particularly LGBTQ clients of color.
National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (NECTAC)
Located at UNC's FPG Child Development Institute, NECTAC supports the national implementation of the early childhood provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Its mission is to strengthen service systems to ensure that children with disabilities (birth through five) and their families receive and benefit from high quality, culturally appropriate, and family-centered supports and services. In the past, trainees have analyzed the varying patterns of the IDEA implementation in each state; developed and implemented an evaluation plan of the National Early Childhood Decision Institute; and gathered information and prepared a written document about MCH core competencies related to the IDEA and NECTAC’s mission. For more information, please visit www.nectac.org.
Ipas
Ipas is an international nonprofit agency that works to increase women's ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights, and to reduce deaths and injuries of women due to unsafe abortion so that women everywhere have the opportunity to determine their futures, care for their families, and manage their fertility. Ipas seeks to expand the availability, quality and sustainability of abortion and related reproductive health services, as well as to improve the enabling environment. Ipas's global and country programs include training, research, advocacy, distribution of equipment and supplies for reproductive-health care, and information dissemination. Past trainees have developed and conducted a needs assessment for miscarriage management service delivery tools and protocols; developed a “road map for cultural change” which included a vision toward a system of quality care for early pregnancy loss; and created and maintained a programmatic database for tracking mentor relationships and scheduled interventions. Ipas is located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. To learn more about Ipas, please visit www.ipas.org.
North Carolina Division of Public Health
The NC Division of Public Health is a state government agency that provides a wide range of North Carolina Public Health programs and services on both the state and local levels to protect and improve the health of the people who live and work in North Carolina. The Division’s MCH-related programs and services are performed by the Women’s and Children’s Health Section (WCH). The mission of the WCH is to assure, promote and protect the health and development of families with emphasis on women, infants, children and youth. WCH programs place a major emphasis on the provision of preventive health services beginning in the pre-pregnancy period and extending throughout childhood. The Section also administers several programs serving individuals who are developmentally disabled or chronically ill. In 2007, a trainee worked in the Children and Youth Branch of the Women’s and Children’s Health Section to create a social marketing program to improve the utility of the statewide mandated Kindergarten Health Assessment (KHA) for public school children. For more information, please visit wch.dhhs.state.nc.us.
Durham Community Health Coalition
The Durham Community Health Coalition brings together and focuses existing community resources to provide culturally sensitive and specific health education, promotion and disease prevention activities to and in the African American community of Durham, a medium-sized city in central North Carolina. The Coalition’s mission is to reduce preventable death and disease in the city’s African American population and eliminate health disparities by 2010. In 2006, a trainee worked with community members to analyze the feasibility of community-based interventions and participated in the strategic creation of these interventions. The trainee also researched and selected appropriate evaluation tools for interventions and programs. Throughout, the trainee examined barriers to healthcare and worked with Coalition leaders and community members to discuss potential solutions to healthcare issues affecting Durham’s African American community and the nation as a whole. For more information, please visit www.mczig.com/chcjuly06/index.htm.
UNC Behavioral Healthcare Resource Program
Located within the UNC School of Social Work Jordan Institute for Families, the Behavioral Healthcare Resource Program's mission is to serve as the bridge linking the research-oriented academic setting to the implementation of current initiatives for the public mental health and substance abuse system, through comprehensive and individually tailored training, curricula development, technical assistance, and consultation. The program promotes the following: designs both classroom as well as Internet distance trainings for professionals working with substance abuse addiction issues and adult and adolescent mental health issues, as well as technical assistance and consultation to state and local government substance abuse and mental health systems, as well as private non-profit organizations. In 2007, a trainee created and conducted an assessment of the North Carolina’s Work First/Child Protective Services Substance Abuse Initiative, and also developed a federal grant proposal for a substance abuse and child protective services collaboration. For more information, please visit bhrp.sowo.unc.edu.
Horizons
Horizons is a comprehensive substance abuse program for mothers and women of child bearing age. Funded by the NC Department of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Abuse Services, the program is administered by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UNC School of Medicine. It provides several levels of outpatient treatment, including individual counseling, relapse prevention groups, family sessions, and half day and full day intensive outpatient treatment through universal screening at public health and community clinics in six rural counties. Horizons also offers extensive training to community service providers on gender specific, comprehensive substance abuse treatment for women. For more information, please visit www.med.unc.edu/obgyn/horizons.
Durham County Public Schools
For more information, please visit www.dpsnc.net.
|
