The overall goal for my practicum is to develop and plan for the implementation of a wellness program in a medium-size community health center.
I work for Harbor Health Service, INC. (HHSI), a non-profit, public health agency and I am doing my practicum at one of its community health centers. Harbor Health owns and operates three community health centers: Geiger Gibson Community Health Center in Dorchester, MA., Harbor Community Health Center-Hyannis, MA., and Neponset Health Center, Dorchester, MA. Harbor Health also administers the Elder Service Plan in Mattapan, MA, a program providing care to frail elders in their place of residence, the Ellen Jones Community Dental Center, Harwich, Ma and the Dorchester South WIC program where I am the director.
I am doing my practicum at the Neponset Community Health Center. My site supervisor Paulette Shaw Querner is the vice-president of the HHSI Community Health Centers Division and I am also getting a tremendous amount of support from Kevin Casey the Executive Director of Neponset Health Center.
Paulette and I decided to use the Worksite Wellness Program Toolkit which was developed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Public Health in 2012 (http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/docs/dph/mass-in-motion/worksite-wellness-toolkit.pdf) as a guide for my practicum.
An important first step for a worksite wellness program is to have a clear mandate from the leadership as this communicates the importance of worksite wellness to all employees and helps to create a culture of health. It also helps to obtain resources, support and participation.
When I first approached Paulette about the possibility of working on this initiative for my practicum, she was immediately excited, supportive and motivated to see the project succeed. Likewise Kevin Casey assured me his support of the project.
The next step was to compose a wellness team. Research from the Wellness Council of America (WELCOA) suggests that team members should be formally appointed. Therefore I emailed every middle-manager at Neponset Health Center to nominate one person from their department who would be interested in this great opportunity. Currently there are 16 members on the Wellness Team. Concurrently with composing the wellness team, I did a number of presentations to market the wellness program concept. I presented at the HHSI all mangers retreat as well as the middle-managers meeting and at the general staff meeting at Neponset Health Center. I also met individually with the Medical Director.
This past Thursday May 30th marked the kick-off meeting of the worksite wellness team. I did a brief presentation on the current food and physical activity environment and provided some ideas for improvement. Working on Wellness (WOW)   I am trying to attach the presentation but I’m not sure if it will work. The team decided our program would be called “WOW” acronym for “Working on Wellness”. We developed a needs and interest survey for employees and the plan is to administer the survey this week through survey monkey and paper as some employees do not routinely check their email. The team also decided to request a designated email for the Wellness program- wow@hhsi.us . The health center is sponsoring a raffle for four accelerometer pedometers for employees who complete the survey.
That’s all for now!