Internship in Public Health | With comments by Breanna Sneed

Breanna at a conference in April.

The Public Health Initiatives team at the Wichita State University Center for Community Support and Research (CCSR) continues to expand its reach and scope, impacting a variety of individuals, communities, and systems across the State. At the individual level, the team works closely with students from various programs at WSU, including those working to complete their degrees in Health Service Management and Community Development. 

“My internship experience at [CCSR] was a great experience for me”, writes Breanna Sneed, who joined CCSR in her final semester in the program. “It opened my eyes to things that I was not aware of in Public Health.”

At the community level, the CCSR Public Health Initiatives (PHI) team supports initiatives like the Visioneering Health Alliance in the Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area and Project 17, representing 17 counties in Southeast Kansas. The Visioneering Health Alliance recently held a forum at the Kansas Leadership Center focused on community efforts to improve healthy eating behaviors.

Of the many speakers at this forum, Breanna writes, “I was ‘wowed’ by Mim McKenzie, of the Greater Wichita YMCA, and her information about the YMCA’s efforts to improve the community and outreach to young people.”

To support Project 17’s efforts to develop a regional Health Improvement Plan that will be used to work toward their goal of using regional cooperation to improve the quality of life for their communities, Breanna assisted in gathering research data from the public health systems in Southeast Kansas. “With this project, I was able to develop multiple core competency skills including leadership and communication.”

In addition to supporting the Kansas Department of Health and Environment in the roll-out and support of a new initiative within the KanCare system, called “Health Homes”, and other system level initiatives, CCSR’s PHI team is partnering with the Kansas Association of Local Health Departments to develop prioritized funding recommendations that aim to improve the public health emergency preparedness system across the state.

“This project allowed me to demonstrate leadership and system thinking as I assisted in putting together questions for those participating in the emergency preparedness planning so that, when we came together, it would open the door for better discussion.” Breanna Sneed writes, “By doing my internship at CCSR, it has helped me grow and my leadership and public health skills have greatly improved.”

In keeping with the CCSR mission, the PHI team will continue to work with individuals, communities and systems to strengthen Kansas. This will include working with students like Breanna Sneed and others, who are essential to our success.

My Internship | by Cameron Hall

My internship at the Wichita State University’s Center for Community Support and Research (CCSR) has been invaluable. As a marketing major, I have learned that some aspects of nonprofit marketing are different from traditional marketing. I developed and implemented our social media for CCSR’s 30^th anniversary. In addition, I also discovered some challenges to being part of the University system.

Wu and Cameron

I participate on an anniversary open house planning committee and everyone was happy with our media coverage. I coordinated advertising on the campus TV circuit. At first it was a challenge to find the people I needed to communicate with, but as time progressed I become more confident and was able to meet my goals. Our social media campaign had just as big an effect as the other options we considered. The numbers of “likes” to our Facebook posts and pages have definitely increased.

My ability to stay organized has improved drastically. There were always four or five things that I could be working on at any given time. My intern supervisor, Angela Gaughan, helped keep me on track and I was able to develop an efficient routine. Everyone at the CCSR was very helpful and willing to fit me into their schedule. For example, when I interview Operations Coordinator, Candy Youle, she set up a time the day after I asked to meet with her. Seeing everyone at the CCSR balance such packed schedules has been motivational. I get more done in a day now than I did when I began my internship.

The one thing that stuck out the most to me during this internship was how little recognition CCSR gets. I learned about their specific target audiences; coalitions, nonprofits, communities, and other organizations that benefit from CCSR’s work. Outside of these, not very many people know or understand how great the center is for their communities. More people are becoming aware of CCSR’s influence both in and outside of their target audiences. Hopefully this trend will continue, because CCSR has a huge impact on the state of Kansas. I’ve enjoyed being a part of the efforts.