What IMPACT is doing to help interns in the public health field.
Jessica Brown
GBC HMS 205
The Public Health Partnership’s Interns and Mentors Program for Action (IMPACT) is a field placement program that was originally funded in 2002 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Centers for Public Health Preparedness Cooperative agreement. The program is a six step process in which interns get to apply the knowledge and skills learned in the classroom in real life practice settings. The experience is structured and aligned with the student’s graduate program and field of study. Field experience also helps students gain and meet their academic requirements for their internship. Finding, managing, maintaining and evaluating can be hard but it is a very rewarding program to be a part of. This program has been going for 10 years and is recommended highly by the previous students.
This program allows students to use what they learn in the classroom in real life situations, create a strong resume, improve their job related skills, as well as job interviewing skills. Student who finish their internship get more job offers, start out at a higher pay rate and are more satisfied with their jobs than the students who do not complete an internship. The agencies that partner with IMPACT, obtain hard working and proactive people to do jobs which results in a good outcome when the thought of hiring comes about. In 2010, the South Central Public Health Partnership (SCPHP) made changes to their field placement agreements which resulted in increasing their numbers of internships from 12 to 20 interns in 2012 and 2013, as well as applications for placement.
The six steps involved in this process are: Step 1- Identifying competency based field placement opportunities. Step 2- Marketing field experience opportunities to students. Step 3- Selecting students seeking field experience opportunities. Step 4- Placing students with practice partners. Step 5- Evaluating student progress toward field placement objectives. Step 6- Program evaluation.
The evaluation stage has really proven the program’s effectiveness. With a total of 81 preceptors, 71 have said they would be willing to accept more interns, as well as providing substantial data that their agency has highly benefited from having interns. Partners of the program say this is an added value that builds a future for the public health workforce. The students in the program talk very positive about the program and strongly agree that they have benefitted from IMPACT. Overall everyone involved in the IMPACT program, whether it is students, employees, or proctors, will profit from this program. With the increase of demand for IMPACT interns, is the key proof that this program is a success.
Personally I think this program sounds amazing. Having such a good screening process, where the intern is made to apply and needs to meet the qualifications to ensure that they will fully benefit from the program is great. Be...
