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Hello, my name is Kaelyn! I am a senior and public health science major. Following graduation, I plan to go to nursing school and also obtain my masters in public health science. I am still torn between specializing in epidemiology or community health. The first day of class was very refreshing as my instructors and peers share my sentiment of being committed. Over the past four years, I have taken courses where I had to create interventions for hypothetical communities. This will be my first time actually interacting with communities, so I am very excited for this course.

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Following this week's class, the most valuable point to me was to build rapport with whoever we're interviewing. I really like the idea of just having a conversation instead of focusing it as an interview. It was actually refreshing to listen to everyone talk about their worst day of the week. For Ruth, Juliana, and Ashley (the people that my group interviewed), the common denominator of the worst day was classes, labs, work, and internship which for 2/3 of my group was Thursday.

One thing that didn't seem to work was following the script of asking the generic questions, because looking at my other peers' boards, my group definitely missed key information as what that specific day entails, what that person does to get through the day, and even their best day and why it is that day. My group was very shy and nervous at the beginning, which didn't help as our interviewees were caught off guard.

From this experience, I was able to learn how to better listen as that can help with building rapport. I also have gotten a little more comfortable with putting myself out there to start a conversation with complete strangers. I have social anxiety, so completing this exercise was a really big deal for me and I really enjoyed it.

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Following this week's class, the most valuable point was to define and ideate  possible solutions for someone that we interviewed last week week. My group decided to pick Ashley because while she enjoyed her hectic schedule, it doesn't seem like she does a lot of stress management.

It is a lot easier to create possible solutions and make inferences about someone when you have more information to work on. We didn't gather any information on her current stress and time management skills, so our solutions were pretty generic like incorporate a self-care day into her weekly schedule, use/create an app so she has her own personalized weekly schedule that incorporates classes, work, and internship so she can see where she may have free time.

Like last week, I realized that in the actual field I will have to make sure that I can tell the individual's story the best I can. I will have to make sure that I ask them follow-up questions and just get a sense of that person. I won't be able to create the best solution for them if I don't really know that individual. The practice interviews were very important in teaching me this because it wasn't something that I initially thought of when we were told about physically going into communities.

This is a valuable skill for me in my profession as a nurse because I will have to listen and empathize with my patients. Then, I will have to define and come up with the best possible solution for them depending on their illness and their current lifestyle behaviors. The only difference is, in this class I will have a lot more time to do this.

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Following this week, the most valuable thing was actually getting to talk to people in person. It was definitely a new experience as I have never just interviewed a random person on the street before. As I got to talk to people, it was nice to just learn how people live on a day-to-day basis.

One thing that seemed to be a problem was the time of day. A lot of people that we interviewed were on a time crunch so we quickly had to interview them because they either stopped for breakfast at Dunkin' or were busy with work (barbershop). Another thing that seemed to not work was sometimes communicating. Most people in the community speak primarily Spanish, with some understanding of English so it was very intimidating as we didn't want to confuse or offend anyone.

My favorite interviewee had to Carlos. We met him in the laundromat. He is an electrician who works mainly in the Baltimore-Towson-Aberdeen area. He typically has an early day, breakfast at 5:30am and then starts work at 6am. For all of his meals, he eats out because he's too tired to cook and doesn't really know how to cook. Although he primarily spoke Spanish, we understood each other pretty well and was very understanding of the possible language barriers so the interview was a success. He was very open and friendly, we even learned that he loves to have tamales for breakfast with milo.

Another interviewee that we met was Sammie. She's a single mother who owns a waxing studio in College Park. We met her in Dunkin' while she stopped to get her daughter breakfast. She typically eats out because she has a very busy schedule and she was actually bringing her daughter to work with her because her babysitter canceled. Although Sammie seems to have a higher income than Carlos, both seem to run into the same problem of not having time to get a home-cooked meal. The dining hall project will be very successful if transportation and access is done successfully. It is certain that this community will love this idea, but the distance from the community to the cafe may be troublesome.

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Following this week's class, the most valuable thing was creating an empathy map for Sammie, someone who we interviewed last week. My group also decided on a group name, "The Wholehearted Health Group" so that should be easier when interviewing instead of saying we're students from UMD. I think this will help a lot as saying we're students from UMD might cause community members to get defensive and closed-off as they may possibly feel like this is more of an experiment than intervention.

We thought of possible ways that we might encourage her to better solve her situation of being a busy, single mother and entrepreneur, who doesn't always have the time and energy to cook homemade meals for her and her daughter. We thought to offer her meal prep lessons as meal-prepping helps to save a lot of time when it comes to cooking and her and her daughter could just grab-and-go this pre-made meals as they go on about their day. If she doesn't have time to meal prep, it was possible that she could subscribe to get fresh cooked meals delivered to her, in this case, someone else meal preps for her and she can just reheat the food when she needs to.

One thing that Sammie mentioned was a babysitter. When we interviewed her, she was actually running a little late to open her body waxing studio because the babysitter that she originally had for her daughter cancelled on her last minute so she had to maneuver that issue and work on such short notice. We thought of possibly having a daycare center so Sammie can have a secure place to drop her daughter while she works/runs errands and also so her daughter has a safe space to learn and socialize with other children her age. It's a win-win in this case for everyone.

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Following this week's class, the most valuable point was noticing that my group and I are getting more comfortable with going out into the field, interviewing people, and then specifically breaking down their needs.

This week, we met Robert and Ryan who both frequently go to the barbershop. While they're from different backgrounds, it was interesting to see that there was shared vaccine hesitancy and government distrust in both communities. While they both share those fears, they both responded very differently. Ryan wants people to overcome their fears and live their lives, he feels as though while yes people should be cautious, the pandemic shouldn't be a determining factor in their lives. Although Robert has a mistrust of the government, he still decided to get the vaccine with his friends. These small details really help us to get a better sense of our community members, and ultimately helps us to find the best possible ways to better their community.

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Following this week's class, the most valuable point was finding similarities within the interviews that we created. The one interview that stood out the most was Demetrius. He was a guy who overall felt helpless and that his health is too far gone, but he wants the best for younger generations. As you can see from the color-coded strings, you can see that while there are clear differences among the interviewees, there are also similarities once you actually dig deeper into their stories.

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Following this week's class, I feel more confident about our final project idea. In class, we did a lot of background information on Temple Hills, MD and even did a little comparison to its neighbor, Clinton. We were able to find out that while Temple Hills has a population of about 95% minority, when it comes to business only about 58% are minority-owned. That says a lot about possible inequalities that may be happening in the community and what that might mean for Ivan, our user.

Ultimately, My group and I decided on a food incubator as the final project because it would allow for minority owners to showcase their business and possibly teach other who may want to start. Individuals will be able to have that safe space to grow their business without running the risk of being kicked out.

We also had ideas of enhanced medical care as we saw that the church, next to Mona farms, provides dental and health care to undocumented immigrants. Another possible idea was a community business park which we would use Mona Farm's space a day out of the month just for everyone in the community to meet up and work on their crafts and boost business. Overall, our goal is to increase social equity and diverse representation in the community as we learned from Ivan that this is lacking currently.

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Following this week's class, the most valuable point had to be Dr. Robert's presentation on her study on gentrification. It was an important study especially to this class as we are also dealing with a community who would've faced the same circumstances had the Red Line been in place. It was interesting to learn that TIG perceptions varied significantly by race and ethnicity, heart health status, and anxiety level.

After this presentation, when going into the field, I think it's important to get a solid understanding of the community. For example, the communities that we have gone into in the past few classes, most people eat out and rarely cook which increases their chance of chronic diseases and heart problems. To add gentrification or even any new factors without properly investigating, would just increase their chances significantly more.

Another important tool that was shared during class was the County Health Rankings that tells you the health outcomes and life expectancies for different counties in the country. When Prince George's County is observed, it is at a decent life expectancy, but still lower than the national average which is bad. When you look 55 minutes away in Baltimore, the outcomes are extremely worse. As a community worker, you have to ask yourself what could be so different within those 55 minutes.

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Following this week’s class, the most valuable thing was actually listening to the community members tell their version of the community. We first interviewed Ivan (in the chair) and Miss Margaret at McGee’s Barbershop. It was a very insightful conversation as we two different generations talk about the past and present of the neighborhood.

One thing that seemed to really work was building rapport with them before just jumping into the questions. Initially, when we asked about the farm and the history of the neighborhood, they were very short with us. After we sat down, and really got to know them and even shared information about ourselves, that’s when we were able to learn more. It was really mind blowing to learn how much discrimination was going on in the neighborhood and how Covid has divided a once united community.

Conversation with Miss Margaret was also refreshing as she originally came from North Carolina and has been here for 23 years. When she first moved here, the neighborhood was predominantly white but over the years, has become more diverse with Black, Hispanic, and Asian people.

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Following this week’s class, my group and I presented our draft of our final project. We used a presentation in order to present to our audience about Temple Hills and some inequalities that are happening in the community. Like last class, we ultimately decided that a good incubator would best support the community because it allows for the minorities to have an equal chance at business and making a profit.

From the presentation, we got a lot of useful feedback. The feedback consisted of retelling the story of the lgbtq+ barber who was forced out of her business due to her sexuality. This story seemed to piqued a lot of everyone’s interest. One thing I noticed that we could work on was making sure that everyone in the group has an equal amount of time to talk about the project and voice their experience. The most important feedback that I hadn’t thought of was to include landlords in the conversation.

In the next class, my group and I can definitely plan out how we are going to incorporate landlords. I’m thinking background research into the community’s infrastructure will help us to gain a better idea of what’s actually going on in the community.

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Following this week's class, the most valuable thing was picking which arc we wanted to do as a group for our presentation. We decided on an innovation arc. Another thing that seemed to be very helpful was Bilal meeting with our group to help us better tailor our project specifically towards Ivan's needs. I feel like that meeting helped us a lot to get ready for our final presentation next class.

Another thing that I liked from class was the empathy and superpower exercise with the visual cards at the beginning of class. My empathy card was of a little boy sick in bed and I picked this card because it takes a lot of patience and care to look after a child better yet a sick one and that same care is needed when we listen to community members' needs and try to create interventions to solve their problems. For my superpower card, I had stadium seats that were identical and this really reminded me of equity and equality which are things that I wish I could give people because I really feel like individuals should have an equitable chance at a healthy and happy life despite factors like income, built environment, etc.

Following Bilal's feedback, one thing that initially didn't seem to work was the idea of the food incubator because it didn't really solve Ivan's issue of feeling the like sense of community in Temple Hills is gone. We then decided to do a monthly fair/marketplace where minority-owned business can team up with Mona Farm and come together to get everyone out again and boost business for everyone involved. Following this week's class, I feel pretty confident about our final project and thankful for this class as a whole as I was able to physically connect with a community for the first time.

Thank you!