The Role of a Certified Labor Doula

Certified doulas provide non-biased emotional, physical, and informational support during pregnancy, labor and the birth process, and the immediate postpartum period. They also encourage informed decision making, model, teach, and encourage effective communication, and encourage cooperative, respectful, and positive atmosphere with the family and birth team.

Scholarship Information

Paid Training - RHA will be providing scholarships for the following certifications, a $1,250 value:

• Certified Labor Doula (CLD) | CAPPA
• Infant and Child First Aid Certification
• Mental Health First Aid Certification
• Students will be paid for their time in training at $25/hour
TOTAL VALUE PER TRAINING: $5,000 

National Recovery Month aims to educate Americans that substance use treatment and mental health services can enable those with a mental and/or substance use disorder to live a healthy and rewarding life.

To start off National Recovery Month, we're sharing a few resources and will add to these as the month progresses. 

Why attend?

HRSA Virtual Job Fairs are free online recruitment events that connect career-seeking health care professionals with representatives from health care facilities across the country.

Learn more about job opportunities, hear details about benefit packages, and find out how you can help underserved communities.

September 23, 2023
We are a proud sponsor of the 4th Annual Maury County Recovery Fest!

TennCare redetermination started in April. Our Health Enrollment team will be available to assist with TennCare redetermination, enrollment, and finding low-cost and affordable healthcare options at the Maury County Recovery Fest! Translation services are also available at no cost! Can’t attend the event? Call 866-675-7092 or click here to schedule an appointment with a trained assister.

In partnership with Ovation Healthcare we've curated a series of virtual webinars specifically aimed toward Hospitals. Webinar Series - Click Each One for Details and Registration:

National Community Health Worker (CHW) Awareness Week is August 28 - September 1 and is the first ever national campaign with CHWs at the center!

The National Association of Community Health Workers has developed this event to increase awareness of CHW identity, roles, impact on communities, and leadership – and to promote policies that respect, protect and authentically partner with the CHW profession.

Time to Remember. Time to Act. Overdose touches people and communities in many ways. On August 31, International Overdose Awareness Day, let's support the people in our communities who go unrecognized by raising awareness of the hidden impacts of overdose, promoting education of overdose response, and reaching out to politicians to make lasting, lifesaving policy changes.

The 2023 theme, “Recognizing those people who go unseen,” is about acknowledging people in our communities who are affected by overdose but might go unseen in the crisis. 

Conference Overview

Join us this fall as we welcome a variety of professionals in their field from across Tennessee to present on topics effecting rural Tennessee. Find the agenda for this event here. 

Registration

Registration for RHA of TN's 29th Annual Conference is now open! 

National Breastfeeding Month is celebrated annually in August and is dedicated to raising awareness of the importance and benefits of breastfeeding for both infants and parents. The observance also aims to raise awareness of racial disparities in breastfeeding numbers and work towards reducing them by providing culturally sensitive support, education, and resources to communities facing more significant breastfeeding challenges. 

Breastfeeding is one of the most effective ways to ensure a child's health and survival. Although more than 80 percent of mothers in the U.S. start off breastfeeding, less than a quarter exclusively breastfeed their baby at 6 months. According to the CDC, fewer non-Hispanic Black infants (74.1 percent) are ever breastfed compared with Asian infants (90.8 percent), non-Hispanic white infants (85.3 percent), and Hispanic infants (83.0 percent).

In order to achieve health equity, access barriers need to be removed and high quality, need-based resources allocated. Health equity promotion is the aspirational guarantee of optimal health for all.

In this article, five actionable strategies for promoting health equity are summarized by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. Often, meaningful equity work requires major shifts in approaches, dedicated resources, and targeted efforts toward social justice.

We proudly announce that Anna Jaujan, an employee at LifeSpring Community Health, obtained her phlebotomy certification! Our Workforce Development Program funded the cost of her practice materials, study guides, and the exam fee.

The key to RHA’s success is our ability to customize the program based on the needs of the employer. By applying U.S. Department of Labor models to the healthcare setting, RHA supports employers and training partners looking to recruit, retain, and upskill healthcare workers.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) offers a search tool to enable users to find a safe and environmentally responsible way to dispose of medications by identifying public disposal locations for prescription drugs, over-the-counter medicines, and other pharmaceuticals.

By entering a zip code, users can access a list of disposal locations including retail pharmacies, hospitals, and hazardous waste centers. Users can also enter a city and state.

Dorothy Monroe and Jennifer Strope are nurse practitioners at Sweetwater Family Medicine in Sweetwater, TN. As participants of RHA's Workforce Development Program, they attended, completed, and received certifications in Suturing and Injections.

Shortly after this training, Jennifer was able to utilize her new skills and provided stitches to a patient in need who would otherwise travelled a long distance to an emergency room for care. Expanding the skill sets of our rural healthcare professionals means lower costs, better outcomes for patients, and healthier, happier communities.

Tennessee's Rural Health Care Task Force, formed in June 2022 by Governor Bill Lee, has released a number of recommendations aimed at improving access to care and health outcomes for rural Tennesseans. In the report are recommendations to increase access to care, train healthcare professionals, and address social drivers of health.

Rural Health Association of Tennessee's CEO, Jacy Warrell, served as the Social Drivers of Health Subcommittee Chair, making recommendations to support grant programs that will allow rural communities to develop and implement their own innovative solutions to addressing social drivers locally. RHA's workforce program also received a nod and is included as a recommendation to address building healthcare career pathways for entry-level healthcare professionals.

We're excited to launch the Rural Health Clinic Network, a member group for independent and provider-based clinics in Tennessee.

We held a Kick-Off Event in June to learn more about the clinics' strengths, challenges, and needs. We look forward to supporting the clinics through the Network, offering resources to help them succeed. We hope to foster a community of collaboration and support within the Network.

The Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-Based Epidemics (ESSENCE) is a national syndromic surveillance system used to monitor disease trends for early detection of potential disease outbreaks.

In Tennessee, the Department of Health (TDH) is using ESSENCE to monitor weekly trends in suicidal behavior and identify regions/counties across the state seeing increased incidents of persons reporting to an emergency department for suicide-related behavior. Each week, the Suicide Prevention Program within TDH will review reports on how many people visited a local ED for suicidal ideation or injuries related to self-harm or suicide attempts. If a certain county reports an above-average number of suicide-related visits for a certain age group, this will trigger an ESSENCE alert for that county and age group. These alerts will be issued weekly by TDH.

Join us for a webinar to learn about our programs, people, and impact. The benefits of membership with us include but are not limited to: access to member only events and communications, member pricing for events, access to RHA of TN’s membership database to connect with professionals across the state, access to post on our job board for free, and much more. You can find more of that information here.

Meeting will include: RHA’s History, Mission, Vision, Values, Benefits of Membership, RHA Staff and Programs, RHA Volunteer Committees, RHA Board of Directors, and the Annual Conference and Member Meeting.

Join RHA and Dr. Erica Schlesinger Hurst, Pharm.D., Assistant Chief Pharmacist with the Tennessee Department of Mental Health & Substance Abuse Services (TDMHSAS) for a virtual training on MAT/MOUD (Medication Assisted Treatment/Medication for Opioid Use Disorder) and Stigma on August 22, 2023, from 11:00 am - 12:00 pm CDT.  

Attendees will learn about and understand the change in brain function during active opioid use disorder, gain the ability to identify medications used to treat opioid use disorder, and have a comprehension of the various stigma affecting the treatment of opioid use disorder.

Register

Our participants completed their courses with our Workforce Partner, Professional Allied Health, in Memphis, TN, and received the following certifications: Phlebotomy - Jerrian Romero, Kenisha Whitelow, and Bralyn Harris, and CNA - Cache Lewis. 

The key to RHA’s success is our ability to customize the program based on the needs of the employer. By applying U.S. Department of Labor models to the healthcare setting, RHA supports employers and training partners looking to recruit, retain, and upskill healthcare workers.