Sam Houston State University and Fort Bend Health and Human Services will collaborate to establish a student internship program.
The arrangement was approved by Fort Bend County commissioners on Tuesday.
The county’s health and human services department will hire a student intern from Huntsville University per semester as part of the new collaboration.
The environmental health team of the department will collaborate with that student. Food safety, pool maintenance, and mosquito control are among the subjects covered by environmental health.
Public health, nursing, healthcare management, kinesiology, athletic training, dietetics/nutrition, health sciences, multilingual healthcare, music therapy, and phlebotomy are among the programs that will be eligible for the internship, according to county records.
According to Dr. Letosha Gale-Lowe, director of Fort Bend County Health and Human Services, the curriculum will assist students in pursuing jobs in public health.
“After COVID, many people quit working in public health. “There was a lot of pressure,” she remarked. “But this opens up the door for young people, or other people to come into public health and see what it is and perhaps even take it on as a career.”
Additionally, the University of Texas and the health and human services department have a memorandum of understanding.
Through that agreement, students can interact directly with the health department and the county can receive educational resources.
“It is an absolutely phenomenal way to exchange resources, both for the institution and for us,” Gale-Lowe stated.
Commissioner Dexter McCoy of Fort Bend County Precinct 4 stated his support for the department’s collaborations with universities during Tuesday’s commissioners court.
“I think this is important because this also just positions our county even further as an exemplar in the field,” he stated.
