Four USF College of Public Health undergraduate public health majors are finishing up a new internship program with Planned Parenthood.

The students have been serving as chat/text health ambassadors, answering questions about sexual and reproductive health from adults and adolescents who text or instant message the organization.

“Planned Parenthood reached out to us to partner on this internship,” said Dr. Alison Oberne, director of the college’s BSPH program and an Instructor III. “It’s a perfect fit for our students and for public health.”

This remote internship spans two semesters and is open only to those students majoring in public health. The students receive a $1,500 stipend for each semester of the internship.

“Planned Parenthood serves a vital purpose in our society, and I wanted to be a part of it because I have always felt strongly about reproductive rights and the importance of sexual health education,” commented Emily Rodhouse, a second-semester senior who said she found out about the internship through the USF Public Health Announcements and Opportunities page on Canvas. “Access to care and access to information are extremely important in order to make informed decisions about one’s health.”

“I missed my birth control pill. What should I do?”

As chat/text health ambassadors, the students went through five days of training with Planned Parenthood staff learning about sexual health topics and practicing mock chats.

“One of the training exercises focused on adolescent brain development and how it can impact our younger clients,” Rodhouse noted. “My coworker who ran the training themed the whole presentation around the Netflix show ‘Wednesday’ because it was popular at the time. It made the training really fun and helped solidify the concepts that we discussed by relating them to the show.”

With training complete, the students took on real questions from real-life clients. Most questions, they said, centered around birth control, emergency contraception, abortion, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), pregnancy testing and other reproductive health concerns.

“An example of a question could be ‘I missed my birth control pill. What should I do now?’ ” added Sophie Doffegnies, who’s also in her final semester at USF.

“We were taught to be nonbiased and open-minded,” explained Cheyenne Charles, another senior graduating this spring. “Our job has been to help people no matter where they are in the world and what situation they’re in. Yes, we’ve been trained on how to educate people on birth control, contraception, pregnancy, abortion, etc., but it’s our job to make the chatter [the person who asks the question] feel calm in a judgment-free environment.”

Hundreds of chats, thousands of questions answered

The students say it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how many questions they’ve answered, as each chat can involve several questions. But they do estimate that they’ve each taken part in hundreds, if not thousands, of chats.

“One highlight I had was when a chatter thanked me graciously for all the help I had given her,” said Charles. “It makes me happy knowing that the chatters appreciate what I and the other ambassadors are doing. It makes me feel like I am making an impact in someone’s life, even though we aren’t face to face.”

Impacting change

The students say they didn’t just impart knowledge—they gained some, too.

“This internship has helped me tremendously,” said Doffegnies, who hopes to work in a research capacity for a government, nonprofit or nongovernmental public health agency after graduation. “I got to work, for the first time, in a national 501(c) organization and I’ve developed so many professional skills from doing so. It’s taught me a lot about how advocacy and spreading the right information can impact someone’s life, and I plan to utilize that in my future career.”

Charles says the internship has shown her the importance of health literacy.

“Some people are confused about their own health and what they can do to protect themselves,” she said. “I want to create change and help inform people about public health practices they can use in their daily life. If we can educate people on topics such as safer sex, STI testing, emergency contraception, etc., they can keep that information for the future or inform their friends/family.”

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health