The American Medical Association awarded Jennifer Green, director of Cumberland County’s Department of Public Health, the Outstanding Government Service Award this month.
The national award recognizes a nominated elected official or career government employee’s significant accomplishments in advancing public health. It’s one of the most prestigious awards for public health from one of the largest American medical professional associations.
Yet, Green said it feels odd to be congratulated for what she sees as just doing her job.
“I’m very grateful. I’m very appreciative, and it’s always nice to be recognized,” Green said. “But I also feel like this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I don’t know how to do it any other way. It’s like if somebody gave you an award for being on time for work.”
A community approach
The AMA highlighted Green’s efforts to protect the community throughout the coronavirus pandemic, which hit the county just a year after she became public health director. Some of her work included producing informational videos about the virus to address misinformation and setting up drive-thru vaccination clinics.
According to AMA’s press release on the award, then-Gov. Roy Cooper praised Green and the department “as a shining example of high-quality local government.”
“Across the country, local public health officials played a critical role in combating Covid-19, educating local communities and saving lives,” said Dr. Michael Suk, AMA board chair, while presenting Green’s award on Feb. 11 in Washington, D.C. “Jennifer Green epitomizes that commitment and leadership.”
Tamra Morris, deputy director of the public health department, recalled Green would direct traffic in the parking lot with the rest of the department’s staff as residents pulled in for tests and vaccines.
Morris admires Green’s commitment to being visible in the community. Green makes time to attend as many of the department’s public meetings as she can, whether for the Cumberland-Fayetteville Opioid Response Team (C-FORT), the Fort Liberty and Cumberland County Food Policy Council or the Board of Health. She goes on radio shows to discuss health topics and the department’s services. She goes to community events and town halls, passing out informational pamphlets and speaking with residents.
“She is one of the ones who talks the talk and walks the walk,” Morris said. “She consistently participates in things, not just as our leader coming for situational awareness, but to actually contribute to conversations that help guide practices and to support us.”
While Green participates in the department’s decision-making, Sanquis Graham, local health administrator at the department, said Green hardly ever fully takes the reins and dictates solutions. Instead, Green listens to teams like Graham’s, community partners and resident feedback and guides others to create their own solutions.
As coordinator of C-FORT, a task force of community partners, Greg Berry believes Green’s willingness to listen to and partner with the community has been critical to establishing lasting collaborations addressing the county’s opioid crisis. By backing solutions with the resources from the public health department, Greg said Green has enabled many of the solutions to get off the ground.
“If she wasn’t at the health department doing that, chances are that a lot of stuff never would have even happened,” Berry said.
Putting the ‘outstanding’ in government service
Morris said the department’s leadership, with the help of its grant manager Martina Sconiers-Talbert, has turned into “a mini-grant application team” that works to get the money needed to execute visions.
Even amidst possible federal funding cuts to public health and health research, Green said she is always leveraging current and potential funding to make programs possible and effective. Greg and Graham said Green’s constant effort to bring ideas to fruition inspires people.
“She makes people feel like their wildest dreams and things that they want to accomplish they can do,” Graham said.
In addition to work during the pandemic, AMA spotlighted the permanent county WIC clinic on Fort Bragg that opened under Green, the Healthy Conversations program that trains barbers in health advocacy and her work to decrease maternal health disparities. It described her approach to public health as innovative.
Berry said Green’s openness to outside-the-box, community-based solutions — like a county Recovery Resource Center and a day program for youth at risk of substance use disorders at Rockfish Camp and Retreat Center — has directly contributed to the county’s success in decreasing opioid hospitalization rates.
“I see the fruits of that all the time in my work as we’re busting down silos, bringing people to the table and creating low-barrier access points for people to get care,” Berry said.
For Green, innovation is second nature. It’s part of the work of someone in public health who constantly has to leverage funding opportunities to address community needs, from health issues like preterm birth to factors that impact a person’s health like transportation access.
Green said that while she is the face of the department and was the one accepting the award in Washington, it’s because of the work of others that she received it. She said she couldn’t solely take credit for the Recovery Resource Center, Healthy Conversations or any other programs.
“A lot of the pieces that we have, frankly, were not my idea,” Green said. “They were ideas that sort of generated from lots of different conversations. Then our role, in my opinion, in public health, is to kind of put those pieces together and do the legwork to make that vision come to life.”
Still, Berry, Graham and Morris said the department wouldn’t be the same without Green’s leadership.
“Without her here, we would do what we had to do. We’d still be serving people to the best of our abilities,” Morris said. “It’s that ‘outstanding’ that’s a part of the labeling of her recent award, ‘the outstanding government service,’ that’s because of her. We definitely have gold stars as a result of her leadership.”
CityView Reporter Morgan Casey is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Morgan’s reporting focuses on health care issues in and around Cumberland County and can be supported through the CityView News Fund.
Outstanding article about an outstanding lady! Congratulations Jennifer Green – you do more than “just doing your job “! Thank you for taking care of us! ♥️💝🙏