The Yablonski Fellowship Fund
Rachel Teumim, Health Promotion and Policy
Rachel Teumim is a Master of Public Health (MPH) student in Community Health Education program in the Department of Health Promotion and Policy. She returned to school after much time in the working world, leading programs for youth in a variety of settings, bookkeeping for a local restaurant and even leading adventures folks on zipline tours. While at UMass, Rachel has been examining the connections between youth justice, the school to prison pipeline, racism, and health outcomes. She will be doing her practicum in this area and hopes to continue work in a related field after graduation. In her free time she enjoys dancing whenever possible, making upcycled clothing, spending time outside no matter the weather, and has a strong network of friends, family, and felines that make everything better. She is looking forward to completing her final year and putting her degree to use in the service of improving the health of the larger community.
I am so honored and grateful to have been selected for the Yablonski fellowship. I am an older student who has returned to school to pursue a masters in public health after many years away. I am working to support myself as I go, and this fellowship will go a long way toward relieving financial pressure so I can focus more attention on my classes and upcoming internship.
Thus far I have completed two years of school part-time, and I hope to be able to finish the degree in one more year. I have learned so much in these first two years, and I'm really looking forward to my practicum experience over the summer. I have begun to focus my research on the connection between youth criminal justice involvement, racism and health outcomes. I have spent many years leading programs with young people in various settings so it feels like a natural extension of that work. I have been fortunate to be invited to intern with Citizens for Juvenile Justice (CfJJ) out of Boston, MA for the summer. They are doing important work to reform the juvenile justice system in Massachusetts and to help keep kids out of it as much as possible.
CfJJ worked hard to help get legislation passed in 2018 which raised the age at which a child can be arrested, from 7 to 12 years old. (I was shocked to learn that until then a 7-year-old could be handcuffed and arrested!) The organization was specifically looking for someone in public health to contribute their knowledge and perspective on the issue. I will be interviewing providers from health care, social service, and law enforcement, gathering data, and creating a report detailing the impact this change has had for youth, families and the community.
This feels like meaningful work and I am happy to be on a path to do more to contribute to improving health outcomes for everyone. My parents have both dedicated themselves to serving the community, my mother as a teacher, and my father working for the state. I am so pleased to be able to follow their lead and I can't thank you enough for helping to make it possible.