Baltimore Action Project Highlight
Since September 2023 James “Keoni” Morris has served as a Baltimore Action Project graduate student serving at Dee’s Place Wellness and Recovery Center. Baltimore Action Projects are a collaboration of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative and JHU SOURCE where graduate students from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Johns Hopkins School of Nursing are hired to work a minimum of 100 hours to complete Baltimore Action Projects focused on five areas affecting public health: Addiction and Overdose, Adolescent Health, Environmental Challenges, Food Systems for Health, and Violence.
Keoni has been tasked with data tracking for Dee's Place. As many of our readers know, Dee’s Place offers Baltimore City residents peer-based mentoring and referrals for medical and mental health treatment, as well as a host of services to help create a better life in recovery. Tracking these services is critical to being able to understand the impact of the services Dee’s Place provides.
We caught up with Keoni to learn more about the work has contributed to this past year.
Q: Please describe the work you've been doing as part of your BAP with Dee's Place.
A: I have been learning ways to leverage a computer database to help staff record and review the services being provided by Dee's Place to community members.
Q: Share an experience where you felt connected to the mission of Dee's Place?
A: Anytime I get to meet community members at Dee's Place and sit in on group meetings helps ground me to the mission of Dee's Place, since I do so much on the computer and behind the scenes. But I think when I get to compile all the data from the amount of people coming to groups, or the number of people receiving referrals for recovery and wellness needs, I feel good knowing we can share the great impact of Dee's Place with others outside our community.
Q: Studying public health at Hopkins, what are some key learnings you've gathered from your time at Dee's Place?
A: The public is very diverse, and not all solutions or resources are going to work for everyone the same way; therefore, Dee's Place having multiple supports and resources available for people to engage with is really important to ensuring everyone can progress on their path to better health.
Q: How do you think this experience has informed your studies? and how might it inform your work post-graduation?
A: Most of my experience prior to this internship has been in hospital or academic settings, so this experience at Dee's Place has solidified my desire to stay focused on helping in more community-based settings with a multi-disciplinary perspective.
Thanks to Keoni for being a wonderful addition to our team this year. If you are a Community-Based Organization interested in the Baltimore Action Projects, please go to JHU SOURCE’s website to learn more!
