Graduate Student Internship Program

2008 Catalog of Internship Opportunities

This internship has been filled.

Program Evaluator, Children’s Medical Services

Program: State of New Mexico Children’s Medical Services, and the Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology program
Department of Health, Public Health Division, Family Health Bureau, Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology Program, Santa Fe, NM
Skill Areas: Needs Assessment, Program Evaluation

Agency Information

The State of New Mexico Department of Health houses several divisions and bureaus. The Public Health Division houses the Family Health Bureau (FHB). There are several programs that operate within FHB including Children's Medical Services (CMS) and Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology (MCH Epi). The internship will be with CMS and MCH Epi.

CMS coordinates the newborn genetic and hearing screening programs, the family infant toddler program for children at risk for developmental disabilities, the birth defects prevention program, and the medical program for children and youth with special health care needs. These programs monitor health conditions of children, and provide case management for families whose children need continuing specialized medical care and for youth who need help with transitioning to independent adult life. MCH Epi has recently begun to work with CMS to improve data collection and analysis for their programs.

Purpose, goals, and objectives of internship

Purpose
To evaluate the CMS data collection process and conduct a data needs assessment.

Objectives

1. create a comprehensive list of data sources,
2. create a list of programming and child health indicators that are necessary for CMS program monitoring and evaluation and MCH Epi reporting requirements,
3. determine which data needs are and are not being met using current data resources and collection methods,
4. explore both intra- and inter-departmental data sources that my be useful in fulfilling unmet data needs,
5. complete a comprehensive report of CMS data capacity, needs, and relevance to the child population in New Mexico that will be given to the State Secretary of Health and used to inform legislators.

The work done during the internship will help fulfill the following goals:

1. to contribute to the 2010 MCH Block Grant Needs Assessment,
2. to establish a sustainable single source of CMS data for use by MCH Epi and others for reporting and future monitoring and evaluation of CMS programs.

Data or analytic tasks and activities

The intern will work with CMS and MCH Epi staff to create an evaluation plan to assess CMS data collection. This will include use of logic models and creation of indicators. These indicators will be generated through discussions with CMS and MCH Epi staff, and through literature searches by the intern. These discussions will yield a baseline assessment of

1. what questions CMS wishes to answer through its data collection
2. what questions existing data can answer,
3. what questions the data don't answer,
4. what other data sources can be used to enhance CMS/MCH Epi reporting,
5. how the process of data collection can be improved to meet the needs of CMS programming and MCH Epi reporting.

Data or analytic skills required

The intern will need basic data analysis skills, and basic skills in program evaluation, both of which will be expanded through the internship experience. Data skills:

1. Intermediate Knowledge of Microsoft EXCEL,
2. The ability to generate and interpret descriptive statistics.

Analytic skills, the ability to:

1. create a plan for process evaluation using logic modeling and other basic program evaluation techniques,
2. assess reporting requirements,
3. determine data needs based on reporting requirements,
4. create a work plan/time line for process evaluation, needs assessment, data compilation and report writing.

Supervisors

Mary Overpeck, DrPH, MCH Epi program manager. Dr. Overpeck and her staff will guide the student with identifying data sources, creating a data base in which to integrate information from these various sources, and in creating the needs assessment and process evaluation plans. Dr. Overpeck will be the primary supervisor, and the student will work closely with Alexis Avery, MPH, who has extensive experience with program monitoring and evaluation, and is the Title V MCH Block Grant coordinator. Lynn Christiansen, MSW, CMS program manager. Ms. Christiansen and her staff will familiarize the student with issues specific to the children with special health care needs population, and with CMS's programming goals and objectives that can be informed through improved data collection and organization.

Internship begins

May or June 2008

Housing

We will help find housing in an apartment, campus dorm, or room in a private home.

Transportation

The work site is available via public transportation.

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