Texas Alliance on Health Internship
The Texas Alliance for Health Care was created as a resource to lawmakers in anticipation of changes in the Affordable Care Act. We are a diversified group of stakeholders from private and public sectors representing hospitals, health plans, philanthropy, community clinics, providers, business, and public health. Our goal is to provide well thought out research that will inform and offer guidance as to the impact of proposed changes in the finance and delivery of health care in Texas. Learn more at our website at http://www.wrgh.org/TLR_Health.asp.
We are seeking an intern to support our current project Texas Advisory on Public Health Infrastructure. The intern(s) will support our research including the creation of guiding principles and legislative recommendations to be presented to Texas policy makers.
Overview:
Texas Advisory on Public Health Infrastructure is using the process described below to manage the creation of a set of consensus recommendations and principles.
Our objective is to provide Texas leadership with thoughtful recommendations for addressing unexpected public health crisis. We want to ensure our state policies and practices are optimally informed and that we have in place the necessary tools for addressing the three R’s: our readiness to respond, our response itself and our recovery tools.
We have selected three areas within public health to focus on: workforce, surveillance, and public health infrastructure. These are suggested areas and we welcome your ideas.
The process we will use is designed to minimize taxing your time and maximizing the application of your expertise, through supporting your input electronically or on scheduled calls.
We are engaging with two well-seasoned Texas health policy professionals to conduct base line research to capture existing best practices learned from the current COVID experience and from previous episodes across the globe in the three key areas identified above: workplace, public health infrastructure and surveillance. This
The project is currently underway and will be ongoing through June 2021. You will report directly to Jon Comola, Founder of WRG. Communication will be remote through conference calls and internet. This is a non-paid position.
Texas Water Roundtable Internship
We are seeking an intern to support our current project focused on research and a report on the importance of coordination of surface and groundwater in Texas. This work is in coordination with Chairman Larson. The intern(s) will support the creation of a report that includes legislative recommendations to be presented to Texas policy makers.
Overview:
Texas is at a crossroads in how we manage our water resources. Texans have been engaged for decades in water planning in a variety of ways at the state, regional, and local levels. These efforts have been extensive and valuable in many respects, but basic questions about how we manage our water and to what ends still await answers. A statewide consensus about how best to manage our water resources has not yet been reached.
Today this diverse group of thought leaders has produced a consensus building on the creation of shared principles and recommendations endorsed by more than 35 organizations. To review the abbreviated recommendations with endorser and for more detailed review, please visit http://www.wrgh.org/TLR_Water.asp.
The recommendations focus on key issues:
- Surface Water and Groundwater Management
- Data Gaps and Research Needs
- New Technologies
- Optimizing the State Water Plan
- Environmental Flows
- Conservation and Drought Response
- Land and Watershed Stewardship
- Education and Public Outreach
The project is currently underway and will be ongoing through December 2020. You will report directly to Jon Comola, Founder of WRG. Communication will be remote through conference calls and internet. This is a non-paid position.
Internship: Neuroscience & Law Enforcement Performance
Overview:
This internship is designed to help improve law enforcement performance through the use of sophisticated neuro-science application. In times of stress (whether individual, at work, or universally, as is being experienced in the current COVID and racial tension climate in the USA) those learning strategies and coping mechanisms that work well most time, don’t work well when the emotional brain takes over and in some cases of extreme stress, severely hinder the functioning of the frontal cortex/thinking brain. New technologies have emerged that can measure these drivers and as such, can predict likely areas of reactivity and re-map thinking to prevent any negative outcomes in the future.
“Psychologists usually try to help people use insight and understanding to manage their behavior. However, neuroscience research shows that very few psychological problems are the result of defects in understanding. [Including what is learned from behavioral interventions or even self-study.] Most originate in pressures from deeper regions in the brain that drive our perception and attention. When the alarm bell of the emotional brain keeps signaling that you’re in danger no amount of insight will silence it.” The Body Keeps the Score, Dr B. van der Kolk [comment in italics added.]
In recent (and past) events negatively impacting law enforcement, it has been our observation that perhaps certain levels of root source, reactive brain-mapping is existent in those officers (as well as military, medical, or any other such professionals) involved and when in extreme stress, they have no control over their behavior. By comparison, those officers who manage stress well and do not over-react, have different, healthier root source drivers in place. Another key competency – that of emotional resilience/recover – is also at play, with any number of performance driver combinations. The point being that this is measurable and rectifiable, long before an individual finds themselves in such a situation.
Interns responsibilities:
The intern(s) working on this project will research articles and studies to create a paper that will inventory the neuro-science used to measure performance and the tools used to correct unwanted behavior.
The project is currently underway and will be ongoing through December 2020. You will report directly to Jon Comola, Founder of WRG. Communication will be remote through conference calls and internet. This is a non-paid position.
If interested in any of the positions listed above, please contact Jon Comola, Founder of WRG, by email at jrcomola@wrgh.org.
