Hannah Henderson Blog #3

Last week's Tuesday afternoon was definitely one of my favorites so far! Learning about the affordable healthcare services that are offered in Memphis was something that both was extremely interesting and inspiring (especially at Choices, which I had previously known close to nothing about), and something that hits very close to home, especially seeing as I work every day at the Church Health Center. I found the offerings that Choices provides to be really fascinating and purposeful, such as the doulas of all stages of pregnancy/whichever process one may or may not have a kid. I also felt like they purposefully created a space that was aimed at defying negative stereotypes of abortion clinics; the facilities were bright and clean, with cheery people, and they also offer many many services other than abortion procedures, and so I felt like the stigma of even walking in the door (despite the protesters) was very effectively minimized.

Although I did already know about pretty much everything the Church Health Center offers, I still found it interesting to hear from Stacy (I had only ever briefly met with or heard from her in the past), and hear her specific angle, particularly in the way that faith ties into the doctrine and the mantra of the CHC, which is something that I hadn't experienced very specifically here so far. I was also just glad that the rest of the Summer Service Fellows got a chance to see the Wellness center (many of them seemed very impressed, and were previously unaware that it was even there) and learn about the ministry of the CHC, because I obviously am very proud of all of the work that is done there, and want people who live in Memphis to know about all of the good it does.

This week at the CHC, Matt (the other intern) and I finished up calling people who had terminated from the MEMPHIS Plan and asking for their feedback on the Plan, which was a pretty interesting experience, just because it definitely put us both out of our comfort zones. However, we both knew that it would be something that would provide very helpful information to the Plan, as the goal is to always expand their base of clients and serve more people, but they need to know how to make it a positive experience. We honestly did not get many responses, which was another challenge, because people either had bad phone numbers on file (this happened a LOT) or didn't answer, or didn't have time when we asked if they could provide feedback. All in all, the information we gathered was pretty minimal, which was kind of frustrating because we did think that it had the potential to be a very impactful study, but most of our time was honestly spent listening to phones ring or getting shut down by busy people at work. However, we did get some good insight into why people had quit, and one of the main problems was that people felt that they didn't understand what exactly was offered and/or what they were getting into when they signed up for the MEMPHIS Plan, which is something that I think Matt and I will try to tackle in the future, by improving communication/the website. I think we will meet with our boss about that sometime early this week, which I am excited about!