In the time between this blog post and the last, my partner, Story, and I have moved forward in finding solutions to our current problem; our partner organization, the Texas Mother-Friendly Worksite, does not know who or how many outreach advocates the Local Health Departments in Texas are working with and do not have the means to gather the necessary information and that the Texas Mother-Friendly Worksite doesn’t currently know how the advocates are choosing certifiable organizations to contact or what they are saying to these organizations. There are already plenty in Texas as seen below.
Our planned solution is to contact the Health Departments, the Austin Independent School District, and certified organizations (either over the phone or through email) to develop a list of advocates. Using the list of advocates and by gaining the knowledge of which organizations were originally contacted by the Health Departments, therefore narrowing down the list of organizations to just those contacted by the advocates, we can find a pattern in how the advocates are selecting organizations to be certified and then further learning what they are saying to the organizations.
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So far, we have been able to gather two lists of certified organizations, organized by cities and regions in Texas, as seen above. However, in the regions list, the certified organizations gathered from the Texas Health Department websites, either did not have a working contact link, or did not have any link whatsoever. This has caused us to delve into more intricate research. We have also enlisted the immeasurable assistance of the school principal, Ms. Goka, who has provided us the specific contact information of the advocates in the Austin Independent School District. She has also done a superb job in keeping us updated with the status of the contacting process; one contact still has yet to reply, with the second happy to assist and collaborate with our group.
As the year goes on, the pressure is slowly building, not just for us, but for all the other groups as the final presentations of our projects approaches. Story and I remain in high spirits, finding unique ways to keep each other in check and positive. We’ll continue to research and contact as much as needed until we either run out of time, or reach the limit for work required. We’ll also continue to finalize work with each other and our instructor, Ms. Miesner, and get aid when necessary from as many sources as possible. As this project goes on, Story and I will grow as students, young women, and citizens of Austin. I will be sure to utilize the experience I gained from this project in the future of my life. Until then, I’ll be helping shape the world for women, even if what I change is insignificant.
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