Building Public Health Leaders: Voices from Public Health AmeriCorps

JENNIFER JEAN-PIERRE:   
Hello and welcome to another ASTHO public health conversation.

Today's podcast features the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and their experience with Public Health AmeriCorps. My name is Jennifer Jean-Pierre, director of content development at ASTHO.

I'm joined today by Jen Aquilante, food policy coordinator for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. And I am also joined by Ousmane Diarra, a public health AmeriCorps fellow. Today we are going to learn more about Public Health AmeriCorps program, and how it is a pathway to rewarding careers in governmental public health.

So, let's get started. Jen, tell us more about your background and your position as the food policy coordinator at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.

JENNIFER AQUILANTE: 
I've been with the health department a little over 13 years now. My background is as a registered dietitian, and a public health professional. And I mainly work on implementing food and nutrition related policies and programs at the health department.

JEAN-PIERRE: 
Thank you, Jen. And Ousmane, tell us a little bit about yourself.

OUSMANE DIARRA: 
My name is Ousmane Diarra. I'm currently a pre-med student at the University of Pennsylvania. I'm nine months out of 12 months into my public health service at the Public Health Department of Philadelphia.

JEAN-PIERRE: 
Thank you both so much. Let's delve right in. Jen, how did you become involved with the Public Health AmeriCorps program?

AQUILANTE: 
I work for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. And we participate with the Pennsylvania Department of Health as part of their BRIC grant, which is the Building Resilient and Inclusive Communities grant program, which is funded through the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors, also known as NACDD. And they're actually partnering with the Public Health AmeriCorps program and started this partnership, I believe, as a response from the COVID pandemic to help support state and local public health departments, to support recruitment training, and the development of the next generation of public health leaders.

So, we're attached to it in a little bit of a couple steps. But we are working through the BRIC grant to advance efforts around food and nutrition security, safe physical activity access, social connectedness, and health equity. So, we agreed to participate in the program, so we could have an AmeriCorps service member who would help, you know, us work directly at the health department and our work, to support our efforts to address chronic disease prevention.

JEAN-PIERRE: 
And why did you decide to host a Public Health AmeriCorps member and participate in the program?

AQUILANTE: 
We decided to host an AmeriCorps public health fellow because we thought it was a great opportunity to support up and coming professionals in the public health space, and introduce them to the work that we do around chronic disease prevention, and utilize their expertise and knowledge to help advance our work. And also to support our partners at NACDD and the Pennsylvania Department of Health, who are offering this program. And we also thought it would just be beneficial to have an extra person who can help support the work that we do, given that it's a year long opportunity. So, it's a nice timeline where you know, you can have someone dedicated. They commit 23 hours a week to this position. So, it was just a nice option to have additional staff, but also an opportunity to share with and learn from an AmeriCorps service member.

JEAN-PIERRE: 
Those are all excellent reasons. Thank you so much, Jen.

Now Ousmane, why did you decide to be a Public Health AmeriCorps fellow?

DIARRA: 
I think the position really stood out to me, because of just like the opportunity to be on site. I think just with the advent of the pandemic and then being a public health student, it felt like everything that I was doing was like, theoretical. So, it was just really cool to see an opportunity where I would be on the field often, in which it turns out as I am, and it was just a great opportunity for like, professional development. And it's flexible and like, I'm still in school during this program and it hasn't been a problem. So, I think just those things are what really made me want to do this.

JEAN-PIERRE: 
Thank you, Ousmane. So you spoke about being on-site. So what does a day- to-day look like for you in this particular program?

DIARRA: 
I've had the privilege to have a lot of different things to do. I feel I'm learning so many different skills. My day-to-day doesn't ever look the same. One day I might go to Farm Philly, which is like a subdivision of Parks and Recs. And basically we just work on different things related to increasing like access to like food or like awareness of gardens. So like, my one day might look like me just in the office, sending emails back and forth. Or I could be out on the field at a community garden, trying to figure out ways to highlight them, like maybe writing a blog. Or I can actually just be at the farm, like helping at the farm like, getting my hands dirty, which is like a really cool experience too. But then I might go into the public health division, and work with Jen on making like, excels or working on grant writing, maybe. We have this project like, it's a produce truck project and I just provide support in any way they need. I help them advocate for themselves, I interview them.

So my day-to-day is like very different. And it's very engaging. And that's like, the biggest thing for me, like just not doing the same thing every day, having a variety of different things to do.

AQUILANTE: 
I think what has surprised me is just how engaged and involved Ousmane has been. Not that I wasn't expecting that. But he didn't really have a ton of experience, which I think he would say as well in the food system or urban agriculture, agriculture realm. And he really jumped in and supported it and became a proponent of the work, like he said, getting his hands dirty in the gardens and the farms, and seems to really enjoy that.

And I also really appreciate hearing his perspective and experience, and some of his stories as to how he grew up. And he grew up in the city and his experiences and why he's doing the work that he's doing, and why he's interested in it, has been really enlightening as well. And I think that came up even more with him bringing his own ideas and interests to us, and having those be projects that he worked on. Like he talked about the produce truck project, that was really something he identified as a need and brought that to us as something that he wanted to work on. And we were like, sure this sounds great, let's go with it. So, it was just really exciting to have someone who had like fresh ideas and was creative and wasn't afraid to bring ideas to the table.

In my day-to-day is probably a lot different. I do spend a lot of time doing like, emailing, on calls, lots of virtual calls, meeting with people, I kind of manage projects. So, I'm coordinating and overseeing projects and activities, making sure deadlines and timelines are met, and writing proposals and reports, and communicating with our partners, doing contracts and budgets. So, I do a lot of more kind of administrative.

I don't get out in the field as much as I would like. Like I like how Ousmane talks about having both options. But I do a lot of different things. I work on a lot of different projects, but it's a lot more kind of administrative work.

DIARRA: 
I think Jen like perfectly encapsulated our day-to-day and our interactions.

JEAN-PIERRE: 
This all sounds very exciting. And I love hearing about the onsite opportunities and the way that Ousmane has brought new ideas to the program.

Now, let's talk a little bit more about why this position was specifically created.

AQUILANTE: 
Yeah, I can start. So, we created this position to specifically help support activities related to enhancing the local food system and our urban agriculture network in Philadelphia. Part of the BRIC grant was focusing on food and nutrition security and how to address that, especially post COVID.   

So we work with our Parks and Recreation Department and other partners to really try to enhance and expand the local food system. And we know how important urban agriculture can be and the impact it can have on health, from improving mental health, to increasing physical activity, to addressing food insecurity, and violence prevention. We have a lot of those challenges in Philadelphia. So it's important for us to address this food insecurity and urban agriculture work in our public health work here, in our division, and make sure we're supporting that work however we can.

When this opportunity came about, we were excited to have a position that could exclusively focus on this and partner with us and our Parks and Recreation Department on expanding the urban agriculture work in the city.

DIARRA: 
And jumping off what like Jen said, just Philadelphia in general, public health ranking wise as like a major city, it's usually on the lower end when it comes to violence, and access to food, and exercise, and stuff like that. So, I feel like it's cool to have programs like this that kind of try to supplement that.

And just speaking from an individual perspective, like my perspective, I think this program is also important because it covers one of the essential public health services, which is promoting a diverse workforce, educating and promoting a diverse workforce. And I feel that's essential for public health, because I want to make sure we represent the communities that are being served.

I feel like everyone brings something to the table and just being given an opportunity to be able to serve people from Philadelphia, from Philadelphia being a Philadelphian, I think like, that contributes a lot. And I'm just glad there's a program that kind of gives me a pathway to do that.

JEAN-PIERRE: 
Thank you so much for this perspective. Now, Ousmane, what are next steps for you? What are you thinking after this program?

DIARRA: 
So, I'm going to be in school forever. I finished my master's last year. And then after I finished it, I think part of the pandemic, just realizing like there's a gap between medicine and public health, so that kind of made me want to go like the medical route.

So, now I'm back in school. I should be done this spring with my like, pre-health program. And after that, I'm applying to medical school. So, that's like another eight years. But after that, like I just want to become like a public health physician. I want to do all my schooling in Philadelphia. I want to continue to build like cultural competency with Philadelphians, because eventually, like I want to have my own practice to serve as a public health physician. Someone who not only serves the community as a physician, but someone who also is rooted in the community, does research within a community to see like, what are like some of the issues people are coming in with. And how can we actually get people to change their behaviors. Like, that's something that I'm really interested in.

It's like a long, there's going to be a long path. But this opportunity has definitely helped. And even, I feel like it's made me lock in even more to what I want to do.

JEAN-PIERRE: 
Wow, that was excellent. From building the cultural competency with Philadelphians, to bridging the gap between medicine and public health, you have such a plan for your future. And I'm really excited to keep following and seeing the great things that you do.

Now coming back to this particular program, what advice would you give to someone who wanted to participate in the program to find success?

DIARRA: 
I would say, be open minded. Because I think Jen pointed to earlier like, I really didn't have any experience in urban agriculture, like I really didn't know what urban agriculture was. And I think I was just open minded to the experience. And I took everything as a learning opportunity. And that just allowed me to grow so much. So yeah, that would definitely be my number one advice. Be open minded. Try everything. And see what you like and what you don't like.

AQUILANTE: 
For a host I think similar. Being open minded and not locked into your activities you think you have, because like I said, Ousmane brought some really interesting ideas to us that we just built into his position description. They weren't originally what we had planned for him to work on. So that was really exciting.

And I thought the opposite of Ousmane, where he was saying he likes being able to work on multiple projects, but I also feel like it could be a lot to juggle. So maybe trying to hone in on one particular project might be easier for the hosts to, to administer. But I guess obviously, if the service member is open to more projects, that's great, too.

But I think an interesting component of this Public Health AmeriCorps opportunity is that we get to network with other host sites and service members. So, there's other states across the country that are part of this program that we're a part of. So we get to have quarterly meetings and we get to hear what other cities and states are doing, and other work around public health. And how they're addressing food and nutrition security, and physical activity access and social connectedness. And I think that's an important aspect of this piece, so you can see what others are doing and working on and learn from. Like I learned from the host sites, and then Ousmane is able to interact with the other service members and learn from them as well.

JEAN-PIERRE: 
So, from what I'm hearing, is that the Public Health AmeriCorps program has been very helpful and beneficial for both of you. So Jen, what's next for you?

AQUILANTE: 
Yes, we actually will have another year that we're partnering with the Pennsylvania Department of Health and NACDD. So we're looking at candidates right now. They just posted the next round of their, for their applicants. So we'll be hosting another service member for another year, working generally in the same urban agriculture space.

And then I do like to say that we did offer Ousmane a part time position to stay on board with us, amongst all the many other things he's working on, but to still work on the produce truck project. We thought he did such a great job and did a lot of outreach with the produce truck operators. We're looking at ways to increase awareness of produce trucks in the city and potentially find ways that we can support them. So we're going to, Ousmane is going to stay on with us part-time for a while longer to help flesh out that project as well. So we're really excited about that.

DIARRA: 
It was really cool because I was really passionate about the project, so I was gonna do it for free. But I'm glad Jen found a way to get me paid to like to do the work.

JEAN-PIERRE: 
I feel like a broken record, but this is all very exciting. Congratulations, Ousmane, you're getting paid to do something that you enjoy, so that is such a blessing. Now, Jen, tell me a little bit more of what you're looking for in your next candidate.

AQUILANTE: 
Yeah, sure. So I think we look for people with some experience, they don't necessarily have to have experience in food systems or nutrition. It's always good to have an interest or knowledge at least or desire to learn more. We look for excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, we look for someone who's a self starter, who has initiative, and take a project and run with it. And someone who has good organizational skills and can follow through on tasks, but who's creative and isn't afraid to bring up ideas or ask questions. And someone who's also a people person, who can go out and do outreach and talk to people in the community. But who can also, you know, work with partners and identify process points, because some of the projects we have are figuring out what this thing is, and then how to implement and make it happen. So, those are some of the skills and attributes we're looking for.

DIARRA: 
Yeah, I would say that's pretty accurate. And just to add on, I don't think you need all those skills to begin with, because Jen could tell you like, my communication skills needed a lot of work. Even now, like it's improved, but that's something I could definitely get better at. And I know that like, sometimes it's intimidating, like looking at, oh, like all the skills you need, I don't think you need every single skill. I think there just has to be a willingness to grow with the position. And I think as long as you have that, like, you'll be fine.

AQUILANTE: 
I just think this was a great opportunity, again, to support public health, young public health professionals, who want more experience in this space. And not only is it a learning experience for them, but I think I learned a lot as well hosting this service member, or Ousmane, and partnering with other states and learning from them as well.

And I think it just helps you take a step back and plan your activities, because we did have requirements from the Public Health AmeriCorps program. We had to do assessments and plan out goals and objectives. So, it does kind of help you stop for a minute and sort of plan what you're working on a little bit more, and take time out to really be like talking through tasks and activities. But I think it's a great opportunity. I think any organization or health department would be happy to take advantage of this opportunity.

DIARRA: 
Yeah. Just to reiterate like, my role was to still find ways to help them improve social connectedness, access to food, or exercise in Philadelphia. And one of the biggest things I learned is that there's just so many different ways to achieve the same goal. I think just like being open to opportunities, learning to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations, I think those are essential skills that we should all work on. And I think those will make you like, an excellent public health practitioner.

But before we go, I just want to say thanks to Jen. I feel like she's been an excellent host. I think she's an amazing leader. I feel like I learned a lot from her. And she's just like, a great person. I feel like she's very flexible. And she gives me like the space and the direction to just make the best out of my opportunity. So I just want to give her like, a shout out.

AQUILANTE: 
Thanks, Ousmane. Right back atcha, you've been great too.

DIARRA: 
Thank you.

JEAN-PIERRE: 
Well, I'd like to add my own thank you to the mix. Ousmane and Jen, thank you for taking the time to have this conversation with us.

And for those listening in, thank you for joining us today as we explore the vital role of the Public Health AmeriCorps program. We hope that this conversation has shed light on the impactful work being done to improve public health across communities.

Stay tuned for more insightful discussions. And for all of your public health information, please visit astho.org.