after two weeks

brittney fosbrook posted on September 21, 2006 - 1:45pm 3 comments

I have officially been working with HPP for almost two weeks now. Besides becoming formally oriented with the organization, I have spearheaded a couple of interesting projects. My host organization, formally titled Homeless Prenatal Program although everyone calls it HPP, is made up many smaller departments: Community Health Worker Training, Wellness Program, Substance Abuse, Childcare Center and the Technology Center. I am working in the technology center as a tech specialist. I have also been assigned to being the volunteer coordinator. At this moment there is nothing to formally monitor and organize volunteers.

Everyone in the organization is super friendly; I have even dined out with a couple of the staff members. I’m attributing this smooth adjustment to my boss because she has made a substantial effort to ensure that everyone in the organization knows who I am and what my role will be at HPP. After only two weeks, I already feel like I belong here, staff members go out of their way to say hello to me!

As for my projects, I currently have three different tangents for my own work in addition to the training help and website updates that I supply in the lab. First, I am looking at creating an electronic volunteer management system, that will either be online or through Access. This database will allow HPP to organize their volunteers more effectively. My other project is to create some sort of online portal through some CMS (maybe Drupal, but I am also exploring others) specifically for case managers. We have a website called helping-sf that will be used as a starting point for some organization and content, but I am just beginning the design process. If anyone has any suggestions for training, either online or otherwise, I would love to hear about them. Ideally, HPP would like to be able to expand this resource to the entire San Francisco community if everything goes well in the testing phase. Lastly, I am going to try to strengthen the connections between the numerous community technology centers and vocational services in SF. I am looking into working with the SF WiFi project and other local community technology groups.

Mostly, San Francisco is amazing and there are many cheap and free events all over the city. Check out: funcheapSF for more!

I must go. I have to help with a tech class in Spanish. Oh how I wish I could speak Spanish fluently! I suppose that I am working on it.

Filed under:

Rebecca White commented on September 21, 2006 - 6:20pm

Hey, I spent a few days last week looking at CMSes: drupal (and CivicSpace, which is drupal with a bunch of modules), e107, Joomla, xoops. I might post a little on my research & observations, but it's something I like talking about so feel free to email/IM/phone.

cheryl jerozal commented on September 22, 2006 - 8:54pm

but it looks like it could be useful: http://idealware.org/articles/joomla_drupal_plone.php

Richard T. Anderson commented on September 22, 2006 - 1:41pm

Sounds like you are doing some interesting things. Wish I knew more about building websites and speaking Spanish, then I could be of help.

I feel like I belong where I'm at too. Isn't that a great feeling?

Peace,

Rich

brittney fosbrook's Recent Field Reports

1.5 months out

brittney fosbrook posted on July 11, 2007 - 5:25pm no comments

hello there ctc vista project. things here at homeless prenatal are going right along-- i'm unofficially the interim technology manager. this means that i have been doing insane amounts of troubleshooting and teaching for both clients and staff. …read more

cool documentary that i think digital media folks working with youth might like to see...

brittney fosbrook posted on January 10, 2007 - 2:53pm 2 comments

as a vista in the city i am alway looking out for free and interesting events. the public library in san francisco is pretty amazing at showing free films a couple of times per month and last night i had the pleasure of checking out the awesome documentary by Byron Hurt entitled " Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes." The documentary take as in-depth look at masculinity, misogyny, violence and homophobia within mainstream hip hop music and culture. although i thought the analysis could have run a bit deeper, the film makes a point to trace the interconnections of white supremacy, racism, homophobia, sexism and capitalism. and not only that, there are appearances by 50cent, mos def, fat joe and a bunch of other famous artists. …read more

master troubleshooter should be my VISTA title

brittney fosbrook posted on December 4, 2006 - 7:20pm 3 comments

i'm not sure if i have talked with anyone about this, but two weeks ago (i cannot believe how much time has gone by already) i went to an drupal extreme makeover. basically, i was feed for two days and taught the ins and outs of drupal. well, i was taught as much as you can learn in a crash course. i was also able to work one-on-one with a drupal expert to start the revision of our extremely outdated helping-sf. it was an amazing experience (& free for our organization too!) in the past two weeks, however, i have had about zero time to work on the website. this drives me crazy. currently, i am teaching class, helping in the technology center, doing general tech support for the office (meaning about 20 phone calls a day) and being a lead interviewer for my new boss (what?!?). i feel as though there is no time to actually work on the projects that i feel i was hired for. my job title would be more accurately stated as "master troubleshooter". …read more

when transitional periods become the norm...

brittney fosbrook posted on November 15, 2006 - 2:31pm 2 comments

hello from san francisco. it has been almost 3 weeks since my boss left and there is still no permanent new hire in sight. currently, my ex-boss's niece is filling her position but i think it is only until the end of the year. it is strange to automatically fill such a huge role in the organization. i am now teaching a technology class to the community health workers on staff and going full speed ahead on website reworking. everything is finally settling back down and the only huge obstacle is my lack of proficiency in spanish. when i am the only person in the lab (which does happen often now) and a spanish speaker comes in i feel so useless. my spanish skills, however, are rapidly improving. …read more