Enjoying New York City for a week with family; having a remote practicum means that I have the ability to travel while fulfilling my hours!
Hi! My name is Clara and I’ve just finished the first year of my Master of Public Health in Maternal, Child, and Family Health at UNC. My summer practicum is a remote internship with the United States Peace Corps in the Office of Global Health and HIV. I am working with the Youth Health & Wellbeing Portfolio, for which I will produce two products over the course of the summer: 1) a literature review of best practices and recent developments in Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug (ATOD) prevention for adolescents, and 2) a guide for Peace Corps Volunteers to use when implementing ATOD prevention projects for youth at various Peace Corps posts around the world.
I have been interested in health education for a long time, and I am hoping that this summer will give me a better sense of direction as to whether I’d like to be working behind the scenes in health curriculum development, or directly delivering health education campaigns (or both!). This past year, I was a graduate assistant for Duke University’s Student Wellness Center, where I worked with a team to create sexual health education campaigns on campus. We also had the chance to provide some health education presentations at a local high school, the administrator of which told us that the time in school lost due to COVID had created a noticeable difference in the social development of young teenagers; we were asked to consider this as we delivered the content differently according to grade levels. I want to keep such effects of the pandemic under consideration as I work in youth health education this summer.
Some of the perks of this practicum are the conversations that I get to have with my coworkers about their work at Peace Corps. I sit in on the weekly meetings of my office so I can learn more about what my coworkers are doing. My preceptor also hopes to connect me with current volunteers in the field so that I can get a better perspective on the materials that I’m creating for them. I will admit, however, that Aristotle’s old adage, “The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know,” is proving true when attempting to understand the structure of the behemoth organization that is Peace Corps.
One of the challenges I have had to confront in previous health education work was how to educate people about the consequences of certain health behaviors without further stigmatizing those who have already engaged in those behaviors. I look forward to continuing to navigate this challenge as I delve further into health education this summer.
Hello all! I’m Madeleine Metz, a current MPH candidate in the Global Health concentration. This summer, I am working with Dr. Adeyemi Olufolabi to publish the results of his study on the impact of maternal mortality on male partners and their children. Dr. Olufolabi interviewed men whose partners died in childbirth in Rwanda, and I’m currently analyzing the interviews for themes on the emotional, social, psychological, and financial effects of this loss on male partners and children who have been left behind. Later this summer, I will write a draft article for eventual publication.
Losing a mother during childbirth is devastating, and while there has been global progress in reducing maternal mortality, there is still an unacceptable loss of pregnant women who die during childbirth. There are no previous studies on male responses to the death of their female spouse or partner in childbirth, so this research will cover a new perspective.
At this stage of the project, I’m looking at recurring themes that appear across interviews. This is a word cloud, and it provides a visualization of the subjects that came up most frequently.
Word Cloud of the Initial Themes from the InterviewsDoing Some Osteoarchaeology (Guess What Animal Goes with Each Skull)
I’m a relative newcomer to public health, as I have a BS in biology and classics from Emory University and an MSc in osteoarchaeology (the archaeology of bones) from the University of Sheffield in the UK. I was drawn to public health because it’s inherently interdisciplinary, and I’m able to apply my background in science and cultural analysis towards solutions for current health issues.
Other facts about me: I like birds too much; I believe that science belongs to everyone, and taught a traveling middle school class called “What Did I Just Step On? An Introduction to Invertebrate Zoology” with a box of slugs and beetles and millipedes who could handle being lightly mauled by sixth graders; I had a wildly unsuccessful small business selling tie dye; I was/am hated with an undying passion by a Wreathed Hornbill when I worked at Zoo Atlanta; I make a mean soufflé.
I’m excited to be part of this research project, but it can be difficult to work on because these men, their partners, and their families have suffered so much. I’m building in breaks when I can chase bugs or do some tie dye, and they help me stay grounded so I can fully engage with this project.
I’ll let you know how things have gone later this summer!
Wow! It’s hard to believe that my practicum started 3 weeks ago. The planning stages of identifying professional development goals, filling out documentation, and coordinating the requirements for my dual Master of Public Health and Master of Social Work degree have been quite a process, so it’s difficult to believe that I am already this far into my practicum!
Each of these roles allowed me to work in a direct service capacity and community education in the respective area. While working with UNCRW I engaged with practitioners across North Carolina to expand access to free, culturally attuned mental health resources to counties in Charlotte, Greensboro, and Ashville and used cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to provide therapy to refugees in these areas.
Photo of the Eclipse on May 15th
Working at UNCRW was an excellent experience that taught me soft skills about cultural humility and advocacy. Similarly, my work with survivors of human trafficking and sexual assault has informed my practicum experience by creating a foundational understanding of sexual assault advocacy and health work. As an Anti-Human Trafficking Community Educator, I created monthly newsletters, co-authored reports for local policymakers, and assisted with direct outreach and referral coordination.
In addition to these professional roles, I have also had the opportunity to learn from my social work professors and community partners about Art Therapy as a modality. I was introduced to art therapy through a workshop my professor, Laurie Seltz-Campbell, facilitated last year and was so captivated by how different senses (visual, auditory, touch, etc) are underutilized in the therapeutic process and how they can teach us different things about experiences. After the workshop, I signed up for an Art Therapy for Practitioner series with the Art Therapy Institute in Carrboro. These workshops were wonderful in teaching different art therapy techniques including soul collage and watercolor techniques, and I feel like they have been pivotal in getting me grounded in my practicum experience.
Sisonke Ntwana
For my practicum I am working with, Dr. Abigail Hatcher, and her research project Sisonke Ntwana, which is aimed at providing arts and play-based therapeutic interventions for pregnant and postpartum adolescents in Johannesburg. The project is a partnership with the UNC School of Public Health and The University of Witwatersrand School of Public Health in Johannesburg, so I am working alongside UNC faculty and wonderful folks who are based in South Africa.
This is a critical health issue in South Africa since nearly one in five young women will have a child as an adolescent, and these young women are often exposed to violence from family or partners and are at high risk of HIV acquisition (Hatcher, Woolett, 2021).
The study uses a developmental perspective, relying on psychological, biological, and social changes. With my background in social work, this is especially fascinating and important because it provides a critical perspective to look at how the life stage intersects with exposure to violence and mental health, and how adolescence can be a window of opportunity for intervention (Hatcher, Woolett, 2021).
To examine this, the study has three main aims:
Aim 1: Characterize violence, mental health, and HIV treatment adherence among adolescent pregnant women
Aim 2: Explore Social and Psychological Drivers of HIV adherence
Aim 3: Develop an Intervention for adolescent mental health, safe relationships, and maternal sensitivity
An elaborate home for bees at Gold Park in downtown Hillsborough, NC while taking a walk around the farmers market
As an arts-based intervention working with adolescents, there are a variety of approaches that are used during a six-session therapeutic process. The sessions are a mix of individual and group therapy and include sand-tray therapy, art collage, mindful self-regulation, body mapping, storytelling, and letter writing.
As a practicum student, my role is to assist with qualitative research of these therapy sessions by identifying themes in individual sessions and group sessions and then working in Dedoose to further analyze and evaluate themes. To do this, there is a transcription and recording of each session and pictures of the artwork that is produced by clients. It is so interesting to look at the artwork while listening to descriptions. For this entire process, I keep thinking about our 701 course and ethical storytelling; since these sessions are so personal and I am in the role of identifying themes I want to do my best to make sure I am honoring people’s stories throughout this process. I am mirroring words and phrases that people use throughout and lifting them in the ways that I can.
So far, I have been working with transcriptions and recordings of therapeutic interviews and identified key themes in 23 of them. Most of the recordings are in English but a few are in Zulu and are translated to English via transcriptions. I find that listening to the recording and reading the transcription helps me connect to the program- especially for sessions in Zulu.
Wild horses on Shackleford Banks national seashore, NC while taking a vacation this summer
In addition to this, I am developing an interview guide for the arts-based therapists to reflect on their facilitation process, overall findings, and approach. There are four arts-based therapists all with different personal and professional backgrounds, so exploring their approach to therapeutic facilitation, skills, and findings will be extremely informative to qualitative research and the overall process of the intervention. As of right now, I have formed a few questions to include in the interview guide and have set up meetings with the person who oversees the therapy team to explore what type of questions will be most helpful. I am especially excited about this project because I think it will provide fascinating insights into art therapy and how we show up in the work that we do.
My goals with the practicum have been to further my research experience and learn more deeply about art therapy, so this project is a wonderful fit for me. Moreover, an unexpected benefit of the practicum has been the team I am working with and learning about a new area.
It has been amazing to get to know the project team via zoom and learn about health systems in South Africa. I’ve had several conversations with my preceptors about challenges to the health systems, some of which are like challenges in the U.S and some of which are different. We have only had 2 group meetings with the whole team so far since it is week 3, but each meeting provides a window into the community context by describing local resources, social issues, and case briefing. In the spirit of arts-based work, I like to use this vital information for my qualitative work and draw out maps and resources to help keep my research grounded in contextual information.
