AmeriCorps VISTA

Launch your career in public health and make an impact in Monterey County and beyond! Apply today to become an AmeriCorps VISTA service member at Central Coast Overdose Prevention (CCODP).

CCODP is an overdose prevention coalition of care providers, non-profit organizations and community members in Central California's Tri-County communities (Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties).

CCODP is looking to recruit two AmeriCorps VISTA members with differing project focuses. AmeriCorps is the federal agency for national service and volunteerism. Through a partnership between AmeriCorps and the Public Health Institute’s Center for Health Leadership & Impact (PHI, CHLI), VISTA members are placed in high-need communities throughout California to address the ongoing overdose epidemic and other public health crises.

VISTA members must be able to commit to a 12-month term (40 hours/week) and serve on-site in Monterey County. Relocation and a settling-in allowance are available.

On occasion, VISTA members may be asked to attend outreach/community education events, participate in CCODP's Substance Use Response Team (SURT), and subsequently may be asked to report to Dr. Reb Close, one of CCODP’s founders and medical directors, concerning any clinical or otherwise patient-centric activities.

VISTA members will primarily report to Mrs. Rita Hewitt, CCODP's Chief Operating Officer, who meets with VISTA members on a weekly basis at a minimum to review the members' objectives and progress as well as CCODP's current needs and capacity. It is generally in these one-on-ones that VISTA members voice concerns about their performance or needs. VISTA members will also report to CCODP’s Executive Director, Mr. Jesse Allured, as a secondary supervisor.

CCODP's system administrator and former VISTA member, Khanh Nguyen Whited, will provide guidance on AmeriCorps and CHLI affairs, professional development, and technical concerns. Furthermore, CCODP's entire team convenes twice every Thursday to first address administrative topics (e.g., funding, technical infrastructure, and internal policies) followed by ongoing projects.

CCODP’s two VISTA member projects are as follows:

Vista Member 1: Outreach and Sustainability

CCODP’s first VISTA member will help improve CCODP’s community messaging and sustainability through a number of activities.

Stigma is one of the largest challenges that CCODP and our larger community face. To combat it, our VISTA member will create harm reduction training programs and events to introduce medical providers, first responders, and community members to a variety of people with lived and/or living experience while educating them on the most effective methods for treating addiction.

In addition, our VISTA member will help produce a physician-led podcast as well as creating harm reduction resources, social media posts, and community events to draw attention to CCODP and better embed the organization in the local community's consciousness.

CCODP is less than a year old, but it is already managing a large number of programs and partnerships. That rapid growth must also see directly proportional expansion of funding. To that end, our VISTA member will research and regularly present on grant opportunities, help create grant proposals, create a central guide to simplify future grant writing, and plan community fundraising events.

VISTA Member 2: Substance Use Response Team

CCODP’s second VISTA member will provide back-end support for CCODP’s Substance Use Response Team (SURT), a mobile street medicine and crisis response team providing services across Monterey County, particularly in under-resourced areas. SURT’s patient-facing team, which includes physicians, peer support specialists, and physician assistants, conduct on-call and regular outreach sessions to initiate medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for individuals with substance use disorders (SUD). Past that point, the team helps connect patients to follow-up and ancillary services, including further treatment, housing programs, and food services.

Our SURT VISTA member will not be in a patient-facing role; rather, they will help ensure the program’s sustainability, manage the project’s long-term goals and day-to-day tasks, and improve SURT’s patient outreach and incentives.

By submitting grant proposals, our SURT VISTA member will help procure funding for SURT to cover recruitment of and salaries for additional providers, travel costs (particularly applicable given Monterey County's size and the great distances that SURT covers), technical infrastructure, and supplies including naloxone, fentanyl test strips, first aid kits, HIV test kits, bus vouchers, and patient incentives. In addition, by helping create protocols such as those on patient care, the collection, storage, and confidentiality of health information, and communication between providers and with patients, the VISTA member will make future provider onboarding far simpler.

A member will help manage the project on both a micro and macro level; that is, on the micro level, providing support for the providers' day-to-day duties through scheduling, advising the team on when and where they should hold outreach sessions, and maintaining the providers' communication platforms. On the macro level, the VISTA member will develop the program's "QI framework."

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $618.73 per week

Benefits:

• Dental insurance
• Flexible schedule
• Health insurance
• Paid time off
• Relocation assistance
• Vision insurance

Schedule:

• Day shift

People with a criminal record are encouraged to apply

Work Location: Hybrid remote in Monterey, CA 93940

Salary : $619