Episode 32: Health Equity in Action, Interview with Hope Rollins of MPHI

April Moreno 0:02

Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the public health networker. Today we're speaking with hope Rollins, she is the Director of Education and Training at the education and Communication Services Center, also known as ECS. She's here to talk to us today about her journey in public health. Welcome home.

Hope Rollins 0:20

Thank you. Thank you so much, April. I'm excited to be here with you today.

April Moreno 0:24

Thank you so much. So tell us a little bit more about you and the work that you're currently doing. Yeah, so

Hope Rollins 0:30

I have actually been at the Michigan Public Health Institute better known as mph i for almost 25 years next year. And I kind of fell into the field planning to go to medical school when I left MSU, Michigan State University and started working at Henry Ford Health System doing a little bit of direct patient care, working in the home health care field. So was able to work with families dealing with HIV, seniors, aging situations. And what I realized is that although I loved direct public health services, once I got married and moved up to Lansing interviewed in Hihi, and loved public health event management, so I actually oversee a wonderful, splendid team of event planners and a graphic designer, where we literally put together about 200, plus public health events, mostly on behalf of the State Health Department, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. And so that's part of the hat I wear. But the other most kind of more recent things that I'm doing, serving as a project lead for the equity and action workshop series. And so it's all about focused on putting equity and from an intellectual concept and to practical application. And so we do eight workshops. Were just launched it last month. So we're just kind of excited to be leading that effort right now.

April Moreno 1:53

Mm hmm. Thank you. And we'll be sure to share the announcement for the EIA series equity and action series. Thank you. I'm excited to hear that it's also coming to San Diego in August and meeting you then. And so yeah, tell us a little bit more about your journey in public health. Maybe a little bit more of the about the Michigan Public Health Institute's and what people you know, what should they know about public health?

Hope Rollins 2:21

nee Kennedy, that came in and: 2014

April Moreno 7:01

I love that just that's just beautiful. Everything you just said, I'm so excited. Now I want to move to Michigan. Organization is really, it's so much of the heart of what the public health broadcasting media network is about as well. We are here to be part of a movement to improve workforce of the workforce with public health. And so I'm so grateful that we have this opportunity to meet today. Because we also say in our on our website that we walked the talk, talk about health equity, but that's not that's like a fraction of the work.

Hope Rollins 7:35

Right, right. It's ongoing. It's a process. Yeah.

April Moreno 7:41

Thank you so much. I really love this. And I'm really excited about the equity and action series that you have coming up soon. So tell us more, how can we get connected to mph I, I'm so excited. Now I want to go to Michigan, I want to I want to learn more about your organization.

Hope Rollins 7:58

Thank you so much. I feel like you need an amen quarter. If you go to mph i bat org That's simple. M P H, I dot org, everything is on our main page, you just scroll right to the bottom, you'll be you know, see the wonderful boxes about our four core values that I just spoke about. Just underneath that, you'll see the EIA link, and you click on that and you'll see a plethora of all of the training opportunities that we have some that are coming right up in April, some that are happening virtually as well as in person. So out of the eight workshops, half of the workshops are offered in person in Michigan and the other half are offered virtually. So we invite departments, man sector, non public health sectors to join. And a lot of that information is very valuable for HR directors for training programs. So it's not just for people that are within public health. So when you're talking about equity, and when you think about the people that are doing dei work, diversity, equity inclusion, oftentimes you hear about the diversity inclusion, but then they get stuck on the equity piece. What great way to start talking about the vocabulary, start having the dialogue with even core concepts. That's one of our beginning workshops that gives you a baseline understanding of what is equity and what does that mean, and how can you apply it, sitting where you are. So that's what I love most importantly, is that we meet people where they are no matter what professional level that they sit.

April Moreno 9:27

Mm hmm, thank you so much for joining us today. And, again, I'm really excited that we've had this opportunity to meet and the fact that I just love the term terminology, the concepts that you brought forward here, that mph i is working on becoming an anti oppression institution as well. This is powerful work that you're doing. And I'm just really grateful for you.

Hope Rollins 9:50

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I appreciate my time.

April Moreno 9:53

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai