Field Placement:  Maternal and Child Health Access (MCHA)
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Preceptor: Lynn Kersey
Student Name: Karamjit Chela
Year: 2008

Maternal and Child Health Access (MCHA) is a community-based organization located in downtown Los Angeles.  The mission of MCHA is to improve the health of low-income women and families through advocacy, education, training and direct services.  MCHA works to provide information, support, and technical assistance to health and social service organizations, while assisting individual women to achieve healthy pregnancies, enroll in health coverage and other programs and retain benefits, and obtain quality health care for themselves and their families.  Also, MCHA educates policymakers and the general public to improve the health and social service systems for all low-income women and families as a way to benefit the entire community. 

MCHA is comprised of three main components: outreach, training, and education.  My summer internship was apart of the Perinatal Outreach and Education (POE) component of MCHA; thus, it concentrated on the health education and promotion aspect of MCHA.  I mainly worked with the Executive Director, Nursing Director and Health Educator to accomplish my scope of work.  My internship was held from June 27, 2008 until September 19, 2008.

During my field studies, I helped to analyze data from women who breastfeed in order to assess the effects of a breastfeeding support group.  Concrete findings could not be determined due to many limitations.  I assisted with finding evaluation methods for non-literate populations, such as conducting face-to-face interviews and adding pictorial representations to questionnaires.  In addition, I assessed gaps in the weekly health education classes as a way to ensure current topics and health information were being disseminated.  I developed new class topics like disaster preparedness, oral health for mothers and children, and childhood developmental disorders.  Also as a part of my scope of work, I conducted a needs assessment, wrote out an implementation plan, and submitted a grant proposal for an adult literacy project.  I helped to improve the current waiting area for children and create a protocol for childcare activities.  Lastly, I worked on assessing the use of a state mandated newborn referral form by hospitals, clinics, providers, and other agencies.

Through my internship, I learned a wealth of information about the state and federal health care programs available, but not necessarily accessible to low-income women and children.  In addition, I developed skills in grant writing, creating class curriculum, and analyzing data.  I gained knowledge about the current health care system, the barriers many people face in obtaining access to health care, and the huge need for health education and promotion in underserved areas.

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