"How I Spent My Summer Vacation"
Happy Labor Day All!
I hope you enjoy your day off!
For my dedicated blog followers out there (and I know there must be many of you, as that first post was so...riveting), you must have realized that I changed my layout over twenty times since this was first published. My HTML skills are less than spectacular and it seems that each time I think I have perfected every image and border width and font color, something goes terribly wrong. But I promise you, this blog will be so aesthetically pleasing that you will be mesmerized by its beauty!
In other news, I returned late last night from my last hurrah of the summer, a cruise to Mexico, Honduras, Belize, and the Bahamas. I can't tell you how amazing it felt to escape the speed of the city and the stress of the work I have been doing this summer…which brings me to the topic of this entry: My Summer & Social Entrepreneurship.
I am a 2007 Scholar in the NYU Catherine B. Reynolds Program for Social Entrepreneurship. Social Entrepreneurship has become a buzz word recently, and while its definition is hotly debated in publications such as the Stanford Social Innovation Revue, I will define it here as we do in the Reynolds Program. Social Entrepreneurship involves innovative, pattern breaking solutions that address society's most intractable problems in sustainable and scalable ways. It exists in all sectors and often across sectors; personally, I have spent a lot of time studying how skills typical of private enterprise can benefit social service delivery. And it is not exclusive to a certain profession; rather it’s a “meta-profession” that includes many focuses or occupations. Through the program, I have worked with businessmen, teachers, artists, policy makers, and more.
Specifically, my interest in the program has focused on public health. I have studied the social epidemiology of disease and believe that there needs to be a greater concentration on the social determinants of health and the psychosocial consequences of disease. This summer, with the help of the Reynolds Program, I worked with Docs for Tots, promoting practice transformation and expanding the early childhood medical home. To put it simply, this summer I advocated for addressing early childhood mental health and maternal depression in the primary care setting. I have a lot more I could say to say on the topic and would love to speak in depth on my work this summer-- so please flag me down, leave comments, email me, anything to get my attention!
I worked with many amazing organizations this summer as part of Docs for Tots, and if anyone is interested in working with early childhood policy, I recommend investigating these organizations. [In no particular order] New York Zero-to-Three Network, Every Child Matters, Civitas, Voices for America’s Children, Healthy Steps, Winning Beginning Coalition, and the National Center for Children Poverty. There are much more, of course, but these come to mind immediately.
It is difficult to summarize the work I did this summer in a few short paragraphs; it was an incredible fusion of policy work, advocacy, research, and my passion for ground level clinical intervention. I would love to discuss it more in depth with anyone willing.
As we begin the next school year, I am hoping to combine my interest in social entrepreneurship, my experience this summer, and my place in the geriatric mental health program to modify the way society looks at services for our elderly. Stay tuned, for I would absolutely love your input :)
Until next time, wish me luck on the first day of school!