Rachel Ward receives prestigious Boren Fellowship

Rachel Ward, MSW MPH Student

Rachel Ward, current MSW MPH student, has been awarded a prestigious Boren Fellowship to conduct Zika research in Brazil.

The Boren Fellowship is awarded through the National Security Education Program to graduate students to study less commonly taught languages in world regions critical to U.S. interests. Per their website, "Boren Fellows represent a vital pool of highly motivated individuals who wish to work in the federal national security arena. In exchange for funding, Boren Fellows commit to working in the federal government for at least one year after graduation."

Rachel says, "As a dual degree student in Public Health and Social Work with undergraduate degrees in Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Spanish, this opportunity feels like a culminating experience that ties together a number of my academic and professional pursuits over the past eight years. With the much-appreciated help of many professors and colleagues, particularly Dr. Jane McPherson, who connected me with public health and social work professionals in Brazil (thank you, Dr. McPherson!!), I proposed a 6-month long research project in Recife, Brazil. My research concerns ways in which the United States can learn from Brazilian public health response systems to the Zika Virus and similar vector-borne diseases. I am also interested in ways in which social work organizations can provide systems of support during epidemics. As our climate continues to get warmer, I believe the United States will begin to experience more of these epidemics that Brazil and the rest of Latin America have been battling for ages. Through language acquisition and experience abroad, I am eager to be a part of the literal and figurative 'translation' of public health response systems between Latin America and the United States. 

This past year, I received a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship from the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute at the University of Georgia to study Portuguese and begin preliminary research to prepare for this opportunity. I did independent research with Dr. McPherson to study Brazilian health messages concerning the Zika virus. Through my research and personal interests, I have found many ways in which Brazilian health promotion can guide our own health messages in the United States. Once in Brazil, I will continue field observation of these messages, while also working with a team of researchers at a Brazilian university on the Zika response in Recife, Brazil. I also hope to partner with local non-profit organizations to provide support for mothers of babies with the congenital syndrome associated with Zika virus. I am interested in surveying the unique social and economic needs of these mothers affected by the Zika virus and research how the Brazilian healthcare system is responding to the medical needs of their children.

When I return, I hope to secure a job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta in the field of Global Health or Maternal-Child Health, utilizing my Portuguese and Spanish language skills in a way that promotes global health security."

Congratulations, Rachel on this prestigious award!

Surviving and Thriving in the Dual Degree Program - Guest Post by Maddie Winchester (Dec '18)

Maddie Winchester, MSW/MPH student (Dec '18)

Today, probably for the hundredth time, I found myself in the position of having to explain to someone what it means to be a dual degree social work and public health professional. Since the dual field is relatively new and often unheard of, questions like this come up a lot, but luckily I never tire of bringing awareness to this intersection of disciplines and the incredible people who are drawn here. Unfortunately, I often feel like I don’t have the time to do the dual degree justice when I try to come up with a quick answer. I find myself stammering out an incoherent sentence or two about the ways the fields complement each other and what my interests are, but always seem to leave feeling like I’ve left something out. This semester, I’ve spent a lot of time working to better understand what it means to be a dual degree professional and what I hope to do in the future, and have been able to get a much deeper (and hopefully more eloquent) understanding of interdisciplinary practice. In this post, I offer not only my own understanding of the dual professional identity, but also my advice for getting through the MSW/MPH degree – surviving and thriving in the dual degree program.

For me, being a dual degree professional means working on multiple levels at the intersection of social work and public health. We work in both prevention and reaction, and on every level ranging from micro to macro. We work with individuals and communities with one common goal: to better the lives and environments of those with whom we practice. Social work and public health practitioners work in a field that’s small, but growing (Jackson, 2015). We come from disciplines with shared values and a shared perspective about the importance of environmental factors on individual wellbeing (Sable, Schild, and Hipp, 2012). Dual degree social work and public health practitioners work in fields with a growing emphasis on the social determinants of health and on working to eliminate health disparities (Jackson, 2015; Congress, 2013), and we serve as advocates, not only for clients and the policies that affect them (Congress, 2013), but also for ourselves and the important role that we can play.

So with this deeper understanding of what it means to be a dual degree professional in mind, here are some words of wisdom for those considering this program or one like it:

1. Get your elevator speech ready – as I’ve said, you have no idea how many times you’ll need to explain why you chose the dual degree and what you want to do with it to your uncle’s wife’s sister, your friend’s ex-boyfriend, your mailman, etc.
2. Prepare for chaos. Being a graduate student can get messy, especially when you’re in two programs that don’t always communicate perfectly. Practice patience and flexibility. 
3. Say “social ecological model” and “person-in-environment framework” a lot. If you aren’t sure what the answer is in class, you’ll be right about 30 percent of the time if you throw one of those out there.
4. Jump in! Put yourself out of your comfort zone and you’ll be surprised by how much you can learn from your classes, field placements, and relationships with peers and professors. 
5. Learn to separate and navigate between feelings and facts. While your innermost feelings and reflections are requested in your Theory and Practice with Families course, there’s likely not a place for them in your Introduction to Epidemiology paper. 
6. Do research that you’re excited about. Papers and projects are a lot more fun when you’re passionate about your subject matter and willing to explore a new topic.
7. Advocate for yourself. Know your value and the unique skill set that you bring, and don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself when you’re being overlooked or brag (just a little) about your dual perspectives and abilities.
8. Take advantage of your time in Athens. Get involved not only at the University, but also in the community. Explore the city and have fun. Two and a half years seems long at first, but you’ll be surprised by how quickly it goes.
9. Learn to channel your rage into something positive. It can be disheartening and overwhelming to be constantly faced with trying to fix all of the hard things in the world, but remember that you can make a difference and these degrees will help you get there.
10. Worm your way into your cohort members’ hearts. Write your program plans together over coffee. Go for hikes and runs. Eat pizza and tacos. Drink wine and tequila (not simultaneously). Lay in the sunshine. Go dancing. Laugh, cry, and rely on each other. 

I’m here to tell you that not only is the dual degree possible, but it’s something special and something that is needed. If the dual degree is right for you, I can’t wait to meet you. I’ll be here, doing my best to navigate the wonderful chaos of the MSW/MPH program and to grow into the best social worker and public health professional that I can be.

- Maddie Winchester, Class of Dec. 2018

References
Congress, E. (2013). Ethics for Public Health Social Workers. In Keefe, R. H & Jurkowski, Elaine T. (Eds.), Handbook for Public Health Social Work (pp. 21-36). New York, New York: Springer Publishing Company.
Jackson, K. (2015). Public Health Social Work: Now More Than Ever. Social Work Today, 15(6): 12-14.
Sable, M. R., Schild, D. R., and Hipp, J. A. (2012). Public Health and Social Work. In Gehlert, S. (Ed.), Handbook of Health Social Work (2nd ed.) (pp. 64-99). Wiley.

Guest Post by Mary Bills (Dec '18)

Mary Bills, MSW/MPH Student (Dec '18)

In my opinion, being a dual professional and being able to work inter-disciplinarily are two different things but compliment each other. Working inter-professionally to me means being able to represent your discipline at a table full of professionals from other disciplines, and collaborate effectively on issues by approaching them from the different disciplines. As dual degree professionals, we have a unique perspective that allows us to incorporate multiple disciplines to our inter-professional work. Being able to wear two “different hats” and represent both social work and public health in an interdisciplinary setting is a unique skill set specifically dual degree professionals can supply. This unique perspective we are gaining through the University of Georgia’s MSW/MPH program became more apparent through out the semester in our inter-professional identity development, as well through the progression of the program as a whole. 

I often find myself using my social work lens in my public health classes, to bring up issues of marginalization or gaps in services more traditionally thought of in social work, such as mental health services or case management. One of the things I have enjoyed a lot about the dual program thus far is the way that the two lenses overlap to create new opportunities for research and interventions. An example of this is the Sexual Health Education Program that I designed for my resource development and program implementation class. I was able to design what would be traditionally thought of as a public health intervention, for my social work field placement agency, which serves youth in foster care. Throughout my research in developing this intervention, I was able to learn more about the population I was serving every week, assess gaps in social services, and create a health education program for a vulnerable population. This kind of overlap was the reason that I chose the MSW/MPH program, so that I would develop skill sets to serve marginalized populations through clinical and larger scale interventions.

Although the overlap is great, there is always a sense of differentiation between public health and social work that students of the program are constantly trying to navigate. This is not a unique problem for dual degree students, as it was explored in the McCelland (1985) article, Joint Degrees: Do They Strengthen or Weaken the Profession?, which found that students in dual degree programs often over identify with one profession over the other.  While I do feel that I identify more as a social worker, I don’t feel that this in any way devalues my interest or passion for public health. I have wanted to become a therapist for years, so an MSW was a natural path for me to obtain that goal. When I first applied to the dual program, I knew I would be attending the University’s MSW regardless of my acceptance into the MPH program. However, as I get further into my MPH course work, my appreciation for program interventions and serving population groups over individual clients has grown greatly, and often balances out the frustrations of working with individuals.  I look forward to working at both micro and macro levels in the future, and am only able to do this because of the dual degree program.

Interdisciplinary work is a growing trend as professionals try to tackle population level issues the Grand Challenges of Social Work to “ensure healthy development for all youths” and “stop family violence”  (Williams, 2016). Social workers alone cannot eradicate these issues on our own, and it will take effective collaboration between social workers, medical professionals, law enforcement, and other professions to effectively address multifaceted issues to create a healthier society. As dual degree professionals, we can offer a dual perspective in an interdisciplinary team, and continue to serve vulnerable populations through our interdisciplinary skill sets.

- Mary Bills, MSW/MPH Student, expected graduation December 2018

Visit Mary Bills' LinkedIn profile.

References

Williams, J. H. (2016). Grand challenges for social work: Research, practice and education. NASW

McCelland, R. (1985). Joint degrees: Do they strengthen or weaken the profession? Journal of social work education 21(1), 20-26.

Guest Post by Samantha Elliott (Dec '17)

Samantha Elliott, MSW/MPH student (Dec '18)

In December of 2017, I plan on officially embarking into the life of a dual professional. In this inter-professional field I will identify myself as both a professional social worker, as well as a professional public health practitioner. In brief, I intend on using the title social work and public health practitioner. To the common bystander this may sound like a mouthful of jargon. In that case, I will proceed to discuss the unique lens through which social work and public health practitioners tackle problems and engage clients.

Listed in the Handbook for Public Health Social Work by Robert Keefe, PhD, ACSW and Elaine Jurkowski, PhD, MSW are the competencies and guidelines directing field practitioners. One such competency shows the intertwined values and beliefs shared between the social work and public health fields. Under the theoretical competencies it states that public health social workers “recognize various strengths, needs, values, and practices of diverse cultural, racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups to determine how these factors affect health status, health behaviors, and program design” (p.366 Keefe, 2012). This competency reveals the social work skill to operate in cultural humility with clients of all backgrounds, while also utilizing the ability to understand how social determinants of health affect those populations. Having that understanding only builds upon the expertise social work and public health practitioners have in creating or evaluating programs for these vulnerable populations.

Because this is a relatively uncommon interdisciplinary skill set, one necessary attribute of social work and public health practitioners is to engage in the collaborative leadership process. Collaborative leadership is the process through which professionals from various disciplines gather and engage in open discussion over a problem with the collaborative leader facilitating the conversation (Community Toolbox, 2014). This competency of the field is also labeled as, “networking inter-multidisciplinary team building and group processes” in the Public Health Social Work Handbook (Keefe, 2012). The uniqueness of this skill is in high demand because the work between professions can quickly come to a standstill due to competing values if the skilled facilitation of the collaborative leader is not present. Social work and public health practitioners excel at these skills and are an asset to all interdisciplinary teams.

Another primary foundation of interdisciplinary social work and public health practitioners is taking the socio-epidemiological approach to prevention and management of health issues (Jackson, 2015). When taking the socio-epidemiological approach, it means asking the question, “What effect do social factors have on individual and population health?” (Honjo, 2004). This is the perfect blend as an interdisciplinary worker because it looks at a client through the lens of a whole-person approach, also known as person-in-environment. Socio-epidemiology also considers the systems approach, taking note of the policies, environmental circumstances, and economics at play affecting the individual and population. This approach is increasingly necessary as culture continues to shift and grow.

In summary, being an interdisciplinary social work and public health practitioner is a wonderful gift. It encourages humility, constant learning, honor for all professions and the engagement of colleagues around you who might not see the world the same way you do. These differences are not to be squandered, but uplifted and brought together by interdisciplinary workers in all fields.

- Samantha Elliott, MSW/MPH Candidate, December 2017
Graduate Research Assistant, Economic Evaluation Research Group, College of Public Health

Visit Samantha's LinkedIn Profile.

References
Community Toolbox. (2014). Chapter 13-Section 11: Collaborative Leadership. Community Toolbox. Retrieved from http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/leadership/leadership-ideas/collaborative-leadership/main
Honjo, K. (2004). Social epidemiology: Definition, history, and research examples. Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, 9(5), 193-199. doi:10.1007/BF02898100
Jackson, K. (2015). Public Health Social Work: Now More Than Ever. Social Work Today, 15(6), 12.
Keefe, R. (2012). Handbook for public health social work: Springer Publishing Company.