Hello CCCN Community!
My name is Nicolette Hausman, and I am a senior at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo majoring in Public Health. I am beyond excited to continue interning with CCCN this Fall, and expand my connections with the community by sharing my love and passion for birth and wellness.
Before jumping into my relationship and experience with CCCN, I would love to share what led me to CCCN. For as long as I can remember I have had a passion for children’s and women’s health. While I have phased in and out of what I see myself pursuing in the future, I have never drifted from my passion for bettering the health of children and women. In my undergraduate journey, I have attempted to involve myself in every experience and opportunity I have become aware of related to this passion to be able to connect with it in a new and deeper way. This desire to absorb as much as I could began in the Winter of my freshman year. I approached a professor, Dr. Alison Ventura, with an interest in her research: focusing on early childhood feeding interactions and the growth trajectories of children, and the bidirectional influence that parents and children have on one another during these interactions. She was gracious to onboard me as a volunteer research assistant on her team where I participated as much as I could across projects.
At the beginning of my junior year, I became more involved with her research where I began coding videos in which we identified different cues that a mother and infant would provide during the feeding interaction and differed at the different ages we were assessing. I continue to work on this project but joined another research project after the Spring of my junior year. In the Spring, I became certified in the Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training Caregiver-Infant Feeding Interaction (NCAST) Scale. The NCAST Scale is used within the project that I became a part of this Summer through the FROST Summer Undergraduate Program. Being a Frost researcher, I deepened my involvement across health research and was able to be a co-author on the research.
Beyond a passion for health research, I crave to learn as much as I can about something so I can apply it when working with individuals. In the Winter of my junior year, I became a Certified Lactation Educator (CLE) through Cal State University Northridge. This opportunity gave me the tools to assist families with newborns and guide them to be able to provide the necessary nutrition for the optimal growth of their child. In the Spring of my junior year, I began working with the Women’s Mobile Health Unit: a mobile unit that provides low-cost medical and preventive care to women along the central coast; run by the Center for Health Research and the SLO Noor Foundation. Here I learned about the populations the unit served in Santa Maria and Guadalupe and their major health concerns that were being addressed. Becoming involved with the unit helped broaden my awareness of the importance of truly trying to understand an individual’s background to be able to give them the care and support they need.
This desire to learn led me to CCCN. Interested in learning more about the resources available to women along the central coast, I was surprised to see the lack of resources regarding birth. When I came across CCCN, I was moved by their passion to advocate and expand these resources; and knew I wanted to connect with them to become an advocate as well.
I was fortunate to intern with CCCN last Spring where I was able to meet and shadow many of the individuals within the CCCN community; as well as help plan the Birth, Baby, Family, and Wellness Expo. Beginning my intern journey with CCCN last Spring gave me the time to truly understand CCCN and their mission, as well as plant my roots within the community that I hope to grow and expand this Fall. However, my role as an intern this Fall will look a little bit different than it did in the Spring. As I wrap up my undergraduate degree, I am required to complete a senior capstone project; and while there are numerous opportunities, I could do to fulfill this requirement, I wanted to dedicate this project and time to an organization and cause I believe in. The support and experiences that I have received from CCCN are something that I never could have imagined, and I hope through my senior project that I can return even a fraction of what CCCN has given me. For my project, I am helping CCCN develop an interactive virtual birth and wellness provider directory of the providers from Northern San Luis Obispo County to Lompoc and Santa Ynez Valley in Santa Barbara County. The intention of this project is to make the process of finding providers as stress-free as possible for families so they can easily connect with professionals in their area.
I am beyond excited for what this Fall will hold and be able to continue to advocate for families alongside CCCN.
I would love to connect with as many of the beautiful members of CCCN as I can; so feel free to reach out to me!
With warm regards,
Nicolette