This spring semester, I began my volunteer position at Equitas Health, a community-based healthcare system serving over 67,000 people in Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky. It is one of the nation’s largest organizations serving communities for people who have HIV/AIDs and those who identify with LGBTQ+. Equitas also provides mental/behavioral, primary care, and dental care in addition to other health initiatives. Equitas Health also produces Prizm magazine. They are very comprehensive as well as inclusive! When interviewing originally for a work-study position with Equitas last August, I learned that Equitas receives the same grants from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as Care Alliance Health Center, the health center I interned with before back home in Cleveland. During summer of 2017, I worked with Care Alliance on their prevention initiative called Safe on the Scene and a program within that called D-up Lounge. Meanwhile, Equitas has Project Ink and Promise that focuses on men who have sex with men and are of color.
Care for All is their mission.
I met my future supervisor, Shae. She is the head of the Ohio HIV/STI Hotline department and graduated from Ohio University with an International Relations major and nonprofit focus. She hopes to get her Master’s in Public Policy. I deferred the position to focus more on my studies during autumn semester. However, due to my scholarships overpowering work-study, I ended up having to terminate work-study. I still wanted to be involved with Equitas in some way, so I am volunteering with them because of the valuable experience I gain!
The hotline serves people in Ohio, but it’s not unusual to encounter people from outside the state. We have had people from Michigan and even India!
January 8th, 2018 – First Day of Volunteering
Taking the #2 COTA bus to work was a straight line down High Street to the Clintonville neighborhood of Greater Columbus! I wore a nice dress, leggings, and Hunter boots and my backpack was packed with a binder, notebook, sticky notes, and pencil pouch. My supervisor Shae told me to bring my laptop and headphones for my training. While waiting for her to arrive, I decided to take home copies of the magazines displayed along the walls and tables, including several issues of Prizm, Ohio’s LGBTQ community magazine focused on current events, health, arts & culture, fashion, politics, news, travel and entertainment. Shae arrived, and I set my things onto a desk in her office. She proceeded with an office tour and introductions to the other staff here, who work on various projects. I will work with Shae every day, as well as Mykalah (OSU College of Public Health – Class of 2017)!
After receiving a welcome folder containing information sheets, I finished a questionnaire that asked what I wanted in a supervisor, the one skill I wanted to learn the most, and other valuable questions pertaining to work. I also completed an About Me paper, which obtained my birthday, favorite candy, etc. Afterwards, I spent a while working on my training (the first module to tackle was about STIs). From noon to five, we were having a condom packing party! Shae called this the “party day”, as the first Monday of the month is spent packaging condoms into tiny plastic bags for the Free Condom Project! For the Condom Packing Party, we enjoyed Papa John’s pizza and Krispy Kreme donuts before immersing ourselves into assembling the bags! Shae put on the movie “And the Band Played On“; the summary is:
The book [and the docudrama based off of it] chronicles the discovery and spread of the human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome with a special emphasis on government indifference and political infighting—specifically in the United States—to what was then perceived as a specifically gay disease. Shilts’ premise is that AIDS was allowed to happen: while the disease is caused by a biological agent, incompetence and apathy toward those initially affected allowed its spread to become much worse.
This was my first time watching this movie; it does a great job at depicting how AIDs became an epidemic and the history of the actors involved in this issue.
While we watched the movie, each of us were part of an assembly-line operation for efficiency! One person put a postcard advertising the hotline into the bag, then another placed some condoms of a particular brand, then another person did another brand’s condoms, and so on and so forth. I was at the end of the line and in charge of placing some condoms as well as sealing the bags and placing them into containers. Although counting the condom packs were not necessary, I did so for one of the containers, and it contained approximately 74 packs! Therefore, I know that we packed over 100 packages that afternoon!
Overall, it was an extremely great day that was productive and fun. After we watched “And the Band Played On“, we watched “Ancient Aliens“, at the suggestion of a staff member named Charles. That was also very interesting but I was more impacted by the docudrama because it offered me insight into what happened in the 20th century and specifically with the AIDs outbreak. It helped me become more knowledgeable about the timeline of events. At the end of the day, I even had questions written down in my notebook to ask Shae: What are your goals for January? For 2018 in general? (To get out into the community and do more outreach.) How will I be evaluated and how often? Do you want me to update you every day on what I accomplish?
After my first day, I spent a weekend finishing my training about STIs, health equity for LGBTQ+ people, and a refresher video on PrEP and PEP.
Photo from preventionjustice.org Text GETPREP to 69866. It is safe and effective (92-99%) when used consistently at the same time each day. It does not reduce the effectiveness of birth control.
January 22nd, 2018 – Second Day of Volunteering
I came to Equitas early to get situated; I put my lunch bag in the fridge and a new employee introduced himself to me. He helped prepare coffee since I do not know how to use a coffee machine! I love how Equitas’ environment is so welcoming and accepting. It feels like your coworkers/peers are your friends, even though there is still obviously a limit to how friendly you can be! I felt comfortable asking any questions I had as well as requesting people to look over my work to ensure that I did it correctly.
I spent time writing quick facts about the hotline in my notebook to refer to it while working. This day, I was introduced to the dating site Adam4Adam – the hotline has an account on this site to do outreach. We have a profile of a fictional character on here and we click on other users’ profiles; this shows up on their own webpages. They see us and are then able to click on our profile. Our bio basically informs any reader that we are a health counselor and able to answer any questions related to sexual health, including STIs and PrEP/PEP!
In addition to answering messages in my Inbox on the site, I also click on profiles of all the members online who are in Columbus, Ohio at the moment. I simply click through them, and there are usually hundreds in the area at any given time on the site. When I answer people’s messages, I am also required to log the conversation on a data sheet, even if it is for a message saying something like “Hello, I am with the Ohio HIV/STI Hotline. We are here if you want to talk about sexual health :)”
Another task is creating social media posts for the hotline’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter! The goal is to post at least twice or thrice a week. I made a graphic using the design site Canva to acknowledge the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The hotline has a list of what to post:
#MythMonday tackles a common myth regarding sexual health and presents the facts.
#TechTuesday is a video about a new app regarding sexual health; this is done on the first and last Tuesday of each month.
#WisdomWednesday involves a wise quote or phrase
Sometimes Wednesdays are for defining a Word of the Day
#Throwback Thursday or #TransHealth Thursday
#PublicFigureFriday or #FeminismFriday
These various post categories all excite me and I cannot wait to create posts about them!
This graphic celebrates the 45th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
I did not volunteer on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day because it is a federal holiday. I do not recall the number of hours I spent for training but it was around 4-6 hours, I believe. Furthermore, I was absent on the 29th due to a dentist appointment. Although I only volunteered two days in January, I earned about 20 hours of service for Equitas.
JANUARY = ~20 hours
My experience so far has been positive and there is plenty to learn! Please follow my posts as I grow personally and professionally at Equitas this spring!