COMMUNITY SERVICE REQUIREMENT
Community service is required of students who matriculated in the MPH Program prior to August 2005. Students who enter the Program from August 2005 on are not expected to complete community service, but are encouraged to do so.
INTRODUCTION
The mission of the Department of Epidemiology and Community Health includes working with communities to generally enhance, protect and promote the health and well being of populations at risk. The Master of Public Health (MPH) Program emphasizes community service for under-served populations by working closely with local communities, municipalities, state agencies and community organizations.
With community service being a major departmental initiative, given the University’s commitment to enhance its public service presence in the surrounding community, state and region (A Strategic Plan for the Future of Virginia Commonwealth University), the MPH Program requires all students to complete twenty hours of community service as a graduation requirement. This service is in addition to the course requirements listed in the Virginia Commonwealth University Graduate and Professional Bulletin.
The service requirement is designed to enhance your educational experience in the MPH Program in the following ways:
- Provides experience working with community-based organizations and individuals;
- Provides the opportunity to experience first-hand the challenges facing at-risk and under-served populations (lack of access to care, need to change lifestyle behaviors to reduce health risks or other socioeconomic anomalies);
- Provides the opportunity to observe and practice public health knowledge and skills;
- Supports the MPH Program mission of providing special emphasis on under-served populations;
- Provides University support to service organizations.
PLANNING FOR YOUR COMMUNITY SERVICE
The community service requirement does not require course registration, but you should consider the time you will be devoting to your service site when planning the semester in which you intend to complete the requirement. Be sure that your course load is such that your community service hours will not interfere with your course work. You may arrange to provide your service in small blocks of time, such as three hours each. Be sure to schedule your service hours throughout the semester, so that the time demand will not detract from your other MPH life activities. It is not recommended that you wait until the end of the semester to complete this requirement. -- twenty hours can become an overwhelming commitment if you are trying to squeeze it in while being engrossed in academic study, preparing for exams and finalizing term reports.
SELECTING A SERVICE SITE
Using the list of suggested service sites (see Appendix A), choose an organization with which you would like to work. If you want to volunteer at an organization that is not included on the list in Appendix A, you must obtain approval from the MPH Program Coordinator, before beginning your service. You cannot fulfill your service requirement at your place of employment. The service must be completed on a voluntary basis at an organization other than your workplace.
Call the contact person and arrange for a meeting, or if the contact person prefers, make your arrangements by telephone. Be sure to indicate the days you will be available and the amount of hours you are able to dedicate each day. Depending on your schedule and the needs of the organizations, you may have to contact more than one site before you find a site that is a suitable match.
MAKING THE COMMITMENT
You must fully complete the Community Service Agreement Form (see Appendix B). This includes obtaining the signatures of the organization representative, your faculty advisor and the MPH Program Coordinator. The completed form must be submitted to the MPH Program Coordinator for inclusion in your student record to confirm satisfaction of this requirement.
DOCUMENTING YOUR SERVICE
LOG YOUR TIME: Each time you complete a portion of your service requirement, record the pertinent information on the Community Service Activity Log (see Appendix C). Have a representative of the organization (such as the contact person or other staff member) print his/her name in the appropriate column on the form as verification of your work. You may make additional copies of the Community Service Activity Log if needed.
Upon completion of your service commitment, submit the Community Service Activity Log to the MPH Program Coordinator, who will forward the form to the MPH Program Director for signature. The MPH Program Coordinator will then file the Log in your student file as proof of your completing this graduation requirement.
SUMMARIZE YOUR EXPERIENCE: Upon completion of your service requirement, summarize your experience in a two to five page, double-spaced report. Include the following components:
- A cover page with the title of your report, the name, address and telephone number of the community organization, the name of the contact person, your name, address and telephone number and the name of your faculty advisor.
- The report should explain the work that you did and the public health knowledge, skills and attitudes you applied in your volunteer work.
- The report should describe your experience, including observations (either objective or subjective) that you made about the population with which you worked and how these observations relate to the public health knowledge, skills and attitudes you have acquired through the MPH Program thus far.
- The report should include functions from The Ten Essential Public Health Functions list (see Appendix D) that applied to your service.
- The report should explain how the service work was valuable to your public health education.
Turn this report in to the MPH Program Coordinator on or before your Research Day presentation.
