Donovan Doffing '22

Hey all! My name is Donovan Doffing and I am a senior in the Public Health Program here at UMD graduating this Spring. The health interests I am most passionate about include mental health, suicide prevention, and arts in health. This semester I have been an intern for Carlton County Public Health and Human Services where they do a great deal of work with community mental health/suicide prevention which aligns perfectly with my interests. I chose this organization to intern for to develop a much broader knowledge of public and community health. Throughout this semester I have worked on many different projects under the health educators, including my own arts-based suicide prevention intervention which I designed.

Objectives

Listed below are all of my objectives which I have completed throughout this semester:

Donovan Doffing, with help from partnering organization REACH, will implement his own arts-based suicide prevention intervention for SOS Groups (Students Offering Support) in multiple schools in Carlton County from March 14th-April 25th.

Donovan Doffing will design on Microsoft Publisher a handout for each of the four art activities, ensuring that all are at the correct literacy level and ethically conscious for SOS Groups (Students Offering Support) prior March 14th.

Donovan Doffing will create two monthly newsletters on Microsoft Publisher based on health topics pertaining to each month for the Wellness Committee at Carlton County Public Health to be distributed in February and May of 2022.

Donovan Doffing will contact vendors, communicate with caterers, update past promotional materials, and create a survey to distribute to all Carlton County employees regarding the Carlton County 2022 Outdoor Health Fair by the end of April for the fair to commence the week of June 6th.

Donovan Doffing will create and write Week 5 of the upcoming Carlton County Well Within Reach Campaign Toolkit, modeling it off of the Minnesota Department of Health 2022 Mental Health toolkit by May 30th.

Donovan Doffing will set up a Public Health Nurse jail shadowing session and pass the background check that is required to engage in this experience by the end of May.

NCHEC Areas of Responsibilities of the Health Education Specialists

During the time of my internship, I practiced the following areas of Health Education Specialist Responsibilities...

Area I: Assess Needs, Resources and Capacity for Health Education/Promotion: 78 Hours

Area II: Plan Health Education/Promotion: 54 Hours

Area III: Implement Health Education/Promotion: 24 Hours

Area IV: Conduct Evaluation and Research Related to Health Education/Promotion: 89 Hours

Area V: Administer and Manage Health Education/Promotion: 24 Hours

Area VI: Serve as a Health Education/Promotion Resource Person: 16 Hours

Area VII. Communicate, Promote, and Advocate for Health, Health Education/Promotion, and the Profession: 32 Hours

Reflection

I greatly enjoyed my time interning under the health educators at Carlton County Public Health and Human Services. As an organization, the most rewarding thing that they do is put the necessities of the community above all else. While there I noticed that every decision the health educators made was to benefit the health and wellness of the county as a whole. My biggest moment of joy during my time interning was watching the groups of students I worked with doing my art-based intervention. The students seemed very excited by the activities, some even asked to bring extra materials home to do the art activities at home! This impact as a whole has effected my career choice greatly. I now seek a career dealing with community mental health and arts & health and hope to one day even become a Certified Heath Education Specialist. This experience revealed to me that it is possible to bring together my career interests and my passion, and I am forever grateful for the opportunity in conduct my internship at Carlton County Public Health and Human Services.

Annemarie OKeeffe '22

Hello! My name is Annemarie O'Keeffe and I am a senior in the public health program at UMD and I am minoring in health and wellness coaching. I spent my internship time this semester at Carlton County: Public Health and Human Services in Cloquet, Minnesota as a public health educator intern. During my time here, I sat in on many different meetings including the Northland Breastfeeding Coalition, Crisis text line meetings, wellness committee meetings, and much more! I also created the April newsletter and had the opportunity to send out COVID-19 data within the schools to the nurses and superintendents weekly. I chose this location for my internship because I wanted a community based internship outside of UMD. I also spent some time in the Fall volunteering for Carlton County and really enjoyed the people I got to work with. I also wanted to experience a Public Health job that I could potentially do in the near future and Carlton County gave me some great opportunities to explore what one Public Health job may be.

Objectives

While working at Carlton County, I will complete the April Newsletter by the end of March to be distributed out for April, 2022.

While working at Carlton County, I will attend monthly meetings and presentations regarding COVID-19, crisis text line and mental health, wellness committee and child and teen outreach.

While working at Carlton County, I will shadow the Carlton County Jail Nurse by the end of February.

While working at Carlton County, I will complete two weeks of the Stay Connected Toolkit, modeling it off of the Minnesota Department of Health 2022 Mental Health toolkit by May 30th. This will include three posts for each week and a weekly email containing information on what the topic is for each week. I will also supply resources for each post and email.

While working at Carlton County, I will send out weekly emails on Friday's to the school Superintendents and Nurses regarding COVID-19 within schools and the community.

Areas of Responsibilities of the Health Education Specialists

During my internship, I practiced the following areas of Health Education Specialist Responsibilities...

Area II: Plan Health Education/Promotion: 15 hours

Area VII. Communicate, Promote, and Advocate for Health, Health Education/Promotion, and the Profession: 56 hours

Area VI: Serve as a Health Education/Promotion Resource Person: 15 hours

Area VIII: Engage in service to advance the profession: 14 hours

Area VIII: Build relationships with other professionals within and outside the profession: 56 hours

Area VI: Use digital media to engage audience(s) (e.g., social media management tools and platforms). 17 hours

The area that I enjoyed working in most was Area VI: Use digital media to engage audience(s) (e.g., social media management tools and platforms). I enjoyed this the most because I had a lot of space to browse different websites as well as using publisher to create a newsletter.

Reflection

I have loved my time here at Carlton County Public Health and Human Services! As an organization, I think the more rewarding thing they do here is that everyone is so passionate about the work they do and they truly want to help the community. I also really enjoyed the atmosphere and the connections people have made. As an intern, my greatest moment of joy has been being given the opportunity to dive into public health and see what I can do with my future. I also had some much joy in the opportunities I was given here from shadowing the Carlton County jail nurse, attending meetings and being involved as well as sending out a weekly email to School nurses and Superintendents in Carlton County involving COVID-19 within schools. This experience has had a huge impact on my career choice. I found I enjoy some of the county work as well as know that I do not enjoy others. I really would like to involve myself with children health and mental health within schools. This experience revealed that I can find direction in what I love to do and my passions as well as work. I am excited to find a job hopefully working with families or children in mental health or overall health. I am endlessly thankful for my opportunity to Intern at Carlton County and have made such great connections here!

Arianna Santos '22

Hello! My name is Arianna Santos. I am a Public Health major and Psychology minor planning to graduate this May of 2022! I spent my time at Carlton County: Public Health and Human Services in Cloquet, Minnesota as a public health intern. I focused mainly on suicide prevention and mental health outreach. I worked with my fellow interns to collect data including a wide variety of health outreach data within the county. I chose this internship to pursue my interest in suicide prevention and mental health outreach, which I will be continuing as a career after graduation! I also spent the Fall 2021 semester volunteering for Carlton County including QPR shadowing, the Carlton County Suicide Awareness Memorial walk, and COVID-19 Vaccination Stations.

Objectives

While interning through Carlton County, I created the following events and documents

The following attachments focuses on staying connected within Carlton County and Equity within the county through a Well Within Reach Communication Toolkit

Areas of Responsibilities of the Health Education Specialists

During my time at Carlton County, I was able to complete the following areas of responsibility

Area I: Assessment of Needs and Capacity: 10 hours

Area III: Implementation: 15 hours

Area IV: Evaluation and Research: 30 hours

Area VI: Communication: 50 hours

Reflection

I really enjoyed my time at Carlton County with learning more about the exciting aspects of Public Health. The experience I gained from Carlton County landed my a job as a Suicide Prevention Regional Coordinator for the Southwest region of Minnesota through Canvas Health. I look forward to applying the experience I gained through my time at the internship into the real world of suicide prevention and mental health outreach!