I sat down with Rena Dixon, Priority Youth Specialist at the South Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy to learn more about how she became a public health professional. Rena has worked for the SC Campaign for four years and recently earned her Ph.D. in Community Health Promotion and Education from Walden University.
Kemi: Describe your journey to becoming a public health professional focused on teen pregnancy prevention.
Rena: I went to undergrad thinking I was going to be an athletic trainer – very different from what I do now. They discontinued the athletic training program at my school so I had to figure out what I was going to do. At my school, you were put in health science classes to be pre-athletic training, or pre-nursing, or pre-physical therapy, so I stuck with my public health classes and I loved it. I absolutely loved it, it was great. I did my internship with young people in the Housing Authority [of Savannah] so I really bought into working with young people, which led to my first job working at Planned Parenthood in Georgia. I learned all about pregnancy prevention, STIs, and working with young folks. I moved away from that and really wanted to get back into it, which is why I made the switch to come back to working in sexual health all day every day.
Kemi: So, young people – that was really your driving point?
Rena: Right. I really wanted to be a person that was a resource for folks about health information. You see so many people who don’t know the right answers or don’t know how to get the information. I thought it was really important to me as a person of color to be that voice for my own people, and my own neighborhood, and my own family. So I just kind of took off with it.
Kemi: That kind of makes me think of Beverly Bond’s talk [at Summer Institute 2014] where you’re kind of waiting for somebody else to do it [be a resource in your community then decide] I’ll just do it [instead] because other people are probably thinking the same thing, that we need so-and-so to be a role model.
Kemi: Can you describe a typical day being a Youth Specialist?
Rena: I travel a lot. A typical day usually involves me being in the car going somewhere to meet with our providers that we work with. I do have a unique position that I work with providers all across the state and not in one particular region. So, any given day I could be in Spartanburg, or I could be in Horry, or I could be in Charleston, or I could be in Lancaster or Rock Hill. But a typical day involves me driving to see one of our clinic partners or higher ed partners.
Kemi: So, when you say our providers, you’re talking about mostly clinics?
Rena: Yes, my position is specialized to really focus on working mostly with clinic providers to help increase their capacity to provide teen-friendly services for youth coming in, or I work with higher ed campuses to help them address teen pregnancy on their campuses.
Kemi: So, have they heard of us, or you just go in and you give them [information]?
Rena: Ninety percent (90%) of the people I work with closely are receiving some type of grant funding through us or we’re working with them on a particular project like the BlueCross BlueShield project, or the CDC project, or the PREP project, or now the PAF project. So, they’ve already been identified to work on that larger sub-project and I’m just doing my piece for that grant.
Kemi: So, how did you spend this morning?
Rena: I was doing a speaker request for a group of about 300 young people on pregnancy prevention and STIs.
Kemi: Do you do these often? Is it usually that large of a group?
Rena: Well, it’s kind of random. I think it’s always different for us because we don’t do direct service, but people still look to us to provide education and information in communities. So I do feel like we get a lot of speaker requests. Those of us in the office who are public health trainers and are comfortable getting up in front of groups usually get those requests. I did one two weeks ago and one about six months ago. It varies.
Kemi: Do you prepare a PowerPoint, or what do you do to keep young people engaged?
Rena: I did a Prezi this time because there were so many young people, I felt like I needed some visuals and I think that’s a cool, different way instead of a boring PowerPoint. Two weeks ago, I did a game with the young people because I had a smaller group of about 30, and I did two different sessions so I was able to use a game called Fact or Fiction.
Kemi: Are they [young people] pretty responsive?
Rena: Yeah, they are. You get a lot of questions. A lot, a lot of questions because some people don’t have anyone they feel comfortable talking to, or someone they can talk to who’s going to give them the right information.
