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@ncfwphampson-blog
Week 14
Our time as #TeamFarmworker has come to a end :( We delivered an exceptional presentation to the class today telling about our great experiences this semester. I will miss this group and working with the NCFWP! I hope the group next year can pick up in our place and continue developing programs and advocating for this very vulnerable population!
Week 10 - Dia de los Muertos Festival
On Sunday, October 29 we had the unique opportunity to attend a Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Day) festival hosted by the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry. This event was particularly impactful because of how much time and energy the volunteers put in for the event to be a successful and due to the significance of day of the dead events. A large part of the Day of the Dead festival is remember those who have passed on before us. In addition to the Farmworker project, there were poultry workers from western North Carolina that shared very personal stories.
The program began with Leonardo, one of our main contacts at the NC Farmworker Project, performing an acoustic version of what seemed to be a popular song, “El Mojado Acaudaldo.” The song was very well received with audience members singing along. After the performance, Anna Jensen did the welcoming address informing everyone about all the hard work that was required to pull off an event such as this. As a sidenote, the entire program was spoken in Spanish, but there was a translator present who translated throughout the day via walkie-talkies for the non-Spanish speakers who were present.
Following Anna was Maria Jimenez - she explained the significance of dia de los muertos as well as the cultural meanings behind the beautiful altar that was built for the event. As you can see in the pictures, there were many different colors and symbols that were used in decorating the altar, all signifying different things and honoring those who have gone before us. After Maria came the main events for the day -- obituaries to remember those farmworkers and poultry workers who have died on the job and testimonies regarding the poor working conditions of current workers.
One of the most impactful stories, was one regarding an agricultural worker who was riding a tractor. Unfortunately, the worker was uneducated in the proper ways to operate heavy machinery and the tractor overturned into a large pile of cow manure where the individual was killed by asphyxiation - what a terrible way to lose your life, especially when instances such as these are easily prevented by implementing safety and training protocols.
Another thing that stood out to me were stories of the terrible working conditions faced by poultry workers in the western part of the state. We were told stories about the high speeds that these workers need to meet in order to remain employed. Poultry workers are required to prepare 45 chickens per minute for production. Sadly, their employers don’t believe they are working or producing fast enough, as the National Chicken Council is currently petitioning to exempt poultry plants from line speed requirements. Ideally, they want the workers to prepare 47 or more chickens per minute. Even for those uneducated about the poor working conditions, almost everyone can agree that 45+ chickens per minute is an insane amount of chicken preparation! These faster line speeds will lead to an increase in injury risks and illnesses. Many of the poultry workers at the event shared stories about how their wrists and arms are already in constant pain as they suffer from terrible and untreated carpal tunnel syndrome - increasing line speeds will only exacerbate these issues. As a call to action, and part of our advocacy campaign, our team filled out and signed post cards urging the USDA’s Food and Safety Inspection Service to reject the recent petition filed by the National Chicken Council. I am hopeful that with enough support and attention, this petition will successfully be rejected.
Part of this event was supposed to include our second focus group - unfortunately, many of the workers did not want to stick around to participate. Not only was it Sunday, a day usually dedicated to shopping and preparing for the week ahead, many of the farmworkers were not anticipating the event to last so long, leaving many of them tired and mentally drained. In hindsight, we should have facilitated these focus groups during the lunch that was provided by the Farmworker Ministry, before the program began. Perhaps next year, the event can incorporate a focus group session before the program begins.
Overall, this was a very successful and enjoyable event. While our team did not do much to help prepare, this event has definitely stuck with us and it is something I will always remember. It’s sad to think that there are so many individuals that go through the system unnoticed and very few people care about them. I hope that organizations like the NC Farmworker Project, and the respective poultry organizations will continuing doing their best to advocate for these individuals so they are able to have access to appropriate working conditions. #TeamFarmworker
Week 13
Our time as #TeamFarmworker is quickly coming to an end :(. This past week we have been preparing for our final presentation and have been putting the finishing touches on our deliverable, which include a social media campaign, recommendations, transcribing the focus groups, and putting a plan together for future projects. This has been an extremely enjoyable experience and I am truly going to miss working with this team and the NC Farmworker Project!
Week 2 Reflection: Health Clinic Night
In the beginning of our journey as #TeamFarmworker we had the unique opportunity to be involved and catch a glimpse of a large health clinic operation that occurs about once a quarter. We learned early on that the NC Farmworker Project has a mobile clinic that visits assigned camps one day of the week, however, on Tuesday, August 22, the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry in Dunn, NC was providing space for a larger operation. At this clinic night there was a PA who was fluent in Spanish, numerous residents and student doctors from UNC-Chapel Hill’s medical school and a couple of supervising physicians. While unable to provide any groundbreaking treatments, the providers were able to address minor concerns and treat any pain/symptoms with common over-the-counter medications that were available.
Only having the first couple weeks of MSPH classes under my belt, I was unable to appreciate what exactly was happening from a public health perspective. We have now learned about many of the issues and disparities that exist within rural communities and these are only magnified when you have a population that does not speak the native language. Issues of transportation, issues of language barriers, issues of provider mistrust, all coupled with this idea that “health is hardiness” are all real issues that migrant farmworkers face on a daily basis. Not to mention that if a farmworker wants to seek out care, there is not really a good time, considering their working hours.
We arrived at the NCFWP around 4PM on 8/22 and had our second meeting with our preceptor to lay out our plans for the semester and get an idea about the health fair that we would be hosting later in September. After the conclusion of our meeting, Leonardo drove us around to a couple of different camps. At two of the camps the farm workers greeted us and encouraged us to engage in conversation, even though we were (and still are) terrible at speaking the Spanish language. We learned that some of the camps care for stray dogs that wander onto the grounds; I thought to myself about how this may impact mental health. Leonardo was very helpful and introduced us to as many farmworkers as he could. We heard him confirm a number of different appointments for various workers, some with the mobile unit in future weeks and some who would be attending the free clinic at the ministry that evening. On the way back to the office he informed us of all the obstacles that these farmworkers have to navigate in an attempt to get care. He also briefly mentioned the stigma that surrounds mental health and the reasons as to why some farmworkers do not even seek treatment out of fear of being sent back home.
It was great to see how this community came together for this clinic. NCFWP staff members were transporting farm workers so they could get the care they needed. Translators were available to help patients fill out paperwork before being seen by the providers, and nurses from sampson community college were on site to help with vital signs. As practicum students, we were able to lend a helping hand and even sit in on some clinical encounters with the PA and students. Before being seen by the provider, patients were asked to fill out the initial assessment, which was basically new patient paperwork, except this had additional questions regarding mental and emotional health. Overall, this health clinic felt like a great success. Our team left around 8:30-9:00PM and it was still going strong.
While this clinic did not solve all the disparities that exist within what is the very vulnerable migrant farmworker population, it did it’s best to solve many issues. Providing free care allowed those who are under or uninsured to get care, and the lack of an EHR or formal documentation system may have made patients more comfortable. Perhaps the best thing was the sheer number of native Spanish speakers, and the fact that most of the staff from the NCFWP was present and actively involved throughout the clinic encounter. Much of the staff was assisting with the new patient paperwork and the check in process, and even with vitals.
Week 12
#TeamFarmworker spent Halloween morning together, working side by side in a sweet potato field with other farmworkers! Some other classmates joined us as well. It was great to see how the farmworkers spend their days, and they encouraged us to help and even told us to take some sweet potatoes home to cook! Now every time I pass a field I look to see if there are any sweet potatoes left that we can glean!
Week 11
#TeamFarmworker is continuing to transcribe our focus groups and compile all of our information into a Google Doc for coding and analysis! We are eager to report back to the NCFWP about our findings and develop a social media campaign to educate farmworker on resources available for mental health!
Survey Development Macropost
Week 9:
Our focus group was a great success! During week 9, we completed our final edits to our focus group question outline. Leonardo, one of the main Promotores at the NC Farmworker project, as well as Anna were a great help in translating the survey from english to spanish. Combining Leonardo’s previous farmworker knowledge with Dr. MacNell’s focus group development experience, we have a great tool!
We built this tool to address three main areas (personal barriers, logistic barriers, and cultural differences) and around four main questions. The four big questions were:
What does healthy mean to you?
How do people in your community view mental (emotional) health?
What resources do you know of that are available for you if you feel anxious or depressed?
What kind of services would you like that would be helpful (and the logistics of these potentially new services).
We wanted to start off broad, but quickly address mental health, hovering on the topic for a while. Outside of these four questions, we created numerous supporting (probing) questions to help guide the conversation:
What things impact your mood?
What does it feel like when you’re in a bad mood/stressed?
What strategies, if any, do you use for when you are in a bad mood/stressed?
If you talked to someone in your community about mental (emotional) health do you feel you would be supported or judged?
If you are anxious or depressed do you feel there is someone you can talk to? Who? (Si se siente ansioso o deprimido, hay alguien con quien puede hablar? Quién es?)
In addition, we also provided opportunities to discuss barriers that may prevent these farmworkers from taking advantage of any resources that may be available to them. Our hope is that we will collect enough useful information to pass on to the NCFWP so they will be able to create programs to address the mental health disparities that exist among this very vulnerable population. We facilitated a focus group on Sunday, October 22. We had high hopes for 6-8 participants, however, only 3 wanted to participate. Hopefully we will be able to host another focus group to gain even more information!
To help with the facilitation of our focus group, Leonardo provided copies of the questions to some of the farmworkers ahead of time so they would be able to think about some of the questions in advance. We were not sure if this is proper protocol or not, but at the time, we agreed. Nick, one of the interns at the NC Farmworker Project joined us to be our translator as well. As an extra precaution, we are also voice recorded the entire focus group conversations Not having a team member strong in Spanish has been a major struggle this semester. We also have had no luck finding reliable translators from Campbell or Johnston Community College. This is something to think about moving forward.
In regards to the information we gained from our first focus group, there were a couple of surprises! We thought that the farmworkers would want more resources available to them, but they really were only requesting ways to handle and resolve interpersonal conflicts. They mostly agreed that they felt mental health care was sufficient and definitely preferred going to church and faith-based events more than visiting clinics. They relied heavily on the NC Farmworker Project and Leonardo as well. To be fair, the group of farmworkers that we met with really seemed like a little family; perhaps another focus group will shed a little more light into ongoing issues within the community. While this post is definitely not an in depth analysis of the focus group, I will update later once we have collected data from the second group!
Unrelated to our focus group, we have been invited to help pick sweet potatoes on the morning of halloween! Our team is super excited, as this has been something we have been looking forward to all semester! We are still working on completing the Wal-Mart grant, and only have a little bit left to do for it, along with obtaining the EIN/tax ID number for the organization. We are also excited to join the farmworker project on October 29 for the Dia de Los Muertos festival!
Week 8:
#TeamFarmworker continues to brainstorm for the development of our focus group intervention. We’ve been thinking about pertinent questions, how to execute, how to recruit participants and how we will go about collecting the data and translating from Spanish to English. Next week we will meet with Dr. MacNell for a final walkthrough to make sure we have everything that we need!
Week 7:
After the health fair, we met with Anna from the NCFWP to debrief about the health fair. Overall, we thought it was a HUGE success and we are entertaining the idea of hosting another one if time permits. We also set the dates for our two focus group interventions. The first one will be Sunday, October 22 and the second one will be Sunday, October 29 after the Día de los Muertos festival at the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry in Dunn!
Week 6:
This past week was a HUGE success for #TeamFarmworker project – we successfully hosted the health fair that we have been planning over the past couple of weeks. As discussed before, as a team, we decided to focus on 3 different areas of health; Sexual education, nutrition and chronic disease, and cancer. The reveal of “Cancer Man,” made by Stephen, was a great success (see pictures). These three topics were picked after having conversations with the staff at the North Carolina Farm Worker’s Project about the areas of greatest need. This health fair was a great way to address some of the health disparities that exist within the migrant farmworker population. As an isolated population living in very rural areas, access to adequate education, formal or informal, is very limited. In addition, the obvious language barrier creates additional challenges that are often unable to be overcome without adequate preparation. Through our health fair, we were able to provide education to a small part of this community in their native language. Without the help of our volunteers, translators and the NC Farm Worker’s staff, this health fair would not have been possible.
We arrived at the Tarheel Nursery on Old Stage Road around 4:30 on Wednesday, September 20, with pounds of pasta, donated toiletries and education materials in hand. We set up the three different stations around the nursery and after quick large group introductions, we encouraged the ~40 attendees to split into 3 groups, as each group would spend about 20 minutes in each station.
The nutrition and chronic disease station was ran by myself and Wrenn. During this station, we encouraged each participant to evaluate their current exercise and dietary regimes and then set goals in an effort to increase exercise and to keep track of what they are eating. Once the self reflection part of the activity had concluded, we have a brief discussion about how to make better activity and food choices (decreasing sugar intake, increasing fruits and vegetables over fast food, and to increase activity levels to burn more calories). We then transitioned to discussing the various types of diabetes and the implications that may become present if not managed appropriately. During this discussion, we had a couple participants who said they had diabetes, but were not managing it appropriately nor taking medications as prescribed. We educated them on the importance of taking medications as prescribed.
The cancer station was ran by Jennah and Stephen. In this station, participants learned about various types of cancer that are most common, as well as the importance of early detection and preventative measures. The Cancer Man graphic, an educational material created by Stephen and Jennah was used to match different cancers to different parts of the body. This was very successful in mitigating the language barrier that exists. In addition, the cancer group was encouraged to ask questions, and questions were prepared for group discussion.
The sexual education station was ran by Kanesha and Ashley. During this activity, participants discussed health risks associated with practicing unsafe sex AND how to talk to their teenage children about safe sex practices. Also discussed were types of sexually transmitted infections and precautions that could be taken to avoid these types of infections. This station was special, as this topic was specifically requested by farmworker families; as a team we never would have thought this was an area that needed additional education (#CBPR)!
Upon the completion of all stations, we served the baked ziti that we prepared! We also had bread rolls, salad and a couple other choices. We had prepared way more food than we needed, so we dished out the leftovers and encouraged families to take to-go boxes full of additional food. The families were so appreciative and it was beyond obvious that we were making a real difference in their lives. We also spread out all of the toiletries that we collected and encouraged the families to take what they needed. We collected more than 75 toiletry items to donate! During the meal time, Sampson County Community College nursing students were present to check blood pressure, weight and other vital signs!
Overall, this health fair was a great success and our team felt as though we made a real difference and that these families could apply what they learned to their daily lives. We could not have had this kind of success without the help of all of our volunteers from the NCFWP and even some classmates (Thanks Morgan and Shaniqua)! We are excited to potentially host another health fair to help educate even more families!
Week 5:
Last week, #TeamFarmworker planned and executed our first health fair aimed to educate migrant farmworker families on the importance of safe sex, healthy eating and exercise habits, and cancer detection and prevention! We collected toiletries as donations from sororities on campus, baked pounds of ziti and prepared education material in English and Spanish to help educate these families! Here are a couple pictures from our prep work -- more to come on the fair!
Week 4:
#TeamFarmworker is about one week out from our health fair! Next Wednesday, September 20, we will be educating families about cancer, nutrition, chronic disease management, teen health, continuing education, and sexual health! We plan to have a hand washing station, a dental care station and a sexual education station! We are excited to organize such a large event that has the potential to impact so many lives.
We will be asking for donations from local restaurants and grocery stores to help find food for this event. We will also be reaching out to local pharmacies, dental offices, and other provider clinics for supplies to help teach our farmworker community.
Week 3:
#TeamFarmworker working diligently to plan our health fair that is set for Wednesday, September 20 @ 6:00PM! We’re excited to be able to help organize an event that will be such a great benefit for the farmworker community and their families. More information to come as it becomes available!
Repost - old post from 8/29 was accidentally deleted.
Week 2:
What a great week with #TeamFarmworker ! Leonardo, a previous Farmworker and now the Outreach Worker and Community Educator shuttled us around a small part of Johnston County to see and interact with current farm workers! Additionally, on Tuesday night our team assisted at the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry where numerous farmworkers were able to seek free medical treatment from a healthcare team of Physicians, Interns, Residents, and Physician Assistants -- what a great opportunity and day to learn about all of the services that these Farmworkers have available. Our team is ready to contribute as much as possible over the coming weeks as we prepare for our own Health Fair! #TeamFarmworker
Week 1:
Our team of first year Public Health students at Campbell University is beyond excited to work with Ms. Anna Jenson of the NC Farmworkers’ Project this fall! We cannot wait to get more involved and to help coordinate health fairs and other events for these farmworkers! #teamfarmworker