A passion for helping others, and seeing the life changing work done in both the public health and non-profit sectors, guided the career path of recently retired North Central Public Health District Director Shellie Campbell.
She officially stepped down May 31 from the agency that provides public health services in Wasco and Sherman counties, but is staying on a bit longer in a part-time capacity until the position is filled. (See the job description at https://www.ncphd.org/)
Recently, Campbell reflected on her career.
She'd done some private sector work, but found she was drawn to the public health and non-profit realm. "For me, it was very rewarding and brought such joy to me, and highlighted some passions about helping others, especially when it came to families and children." She has worked in public health at the local and state level.
In Arizona, she ran a youth anti-tobacco coalition called KYCBUTT (Kingman Youth Coalition Beating Up Teen Tobacco). "Just to see how young people can come alive when given the opportunity to work on something that can change lives was very rewarding to me."
Later, she worked at the KIDS Center, which focused on preventing child abuse, and offered counseling and forensic interviewing to victims of child abuse. "The work I was doing was helping children heal from abuse, and educating and informing people how every person can prevent this, given the right information and voice."
Joining public health, she saw how initiatives and policies can save lives. "Such as raising the cost of tobacco and the impact that has on youth not engaging in the use of tobacco," she said.
Another is access to birth control which helps reduce unintended pregnancies. "The initiatives that public health focus on have positive outcomes."
When her family moved to the Gorge, she was hired as the tobacco prevention coordinator, a role that perfectly matched her passion for outreach and prevention work. She was promoted to clinical program supervisor, and then, in 2020, she was named director.
"What was it like stepping into the role of director during the first pandemic in 100 years? Challenging is a soft way to say it," Campbell said of the COVID-19 pandemic. "It was overwhelming in a lot of ways because we were all learning as we went along."
But everybody stepped in to help, including businesses, healthcare providers, local governments, the NCPHD board of health and other community partners and especially NCPHD staff members. "It was such a weird time but we were all in it together. Even though there was sometimes pushback, we continued to rely on data and science to help us make decisions," she said.
NCPHD's role included case investigations, mass vaccine clinics, mass testing, and mass distribution of supplies for local residents and the migrant and seasonal farmworkers that are essential to the community and play a large economic role.
Campbell saw the huge toll the pandemic response took on NCPHD staff. So while staff continued its regular work – inspecting restaurants, doing home nurse visits, providing immunization and reproductive health services, running a childhood nutrition program – Campbell also took steps to care for staff wellbeing.
That included a salary survey, training, hiring new staff, focusing on mental and physical wellness, and completing a strategic plan to ensure goals align with NCPHD mission.
"Those are the goals I wanted to accomplish over this past year so I feel that I can retire and move on and have a good foundation for someone else to step in and lead the organization and bring new ideas and opportunities," she said.
On the horizon, the health district has started the work of potentially relocating to new offices, as Wasco County may potentially sell the buildings housing NCPHD in The Dalles. Also key is continuing to educate the Legislature on the value of continued levels of public health funding, to work on the fundamental public health programs that keep our communities healthy and safe; areas such as tobacco prevention, reproductive health, environmental health, access to clinical care, WIC, and public health emergency preparedness, just to name a few.
In retirement, she is looking forward to "slowing down a little bit, doing more traveling, spending some time enjoying the Columbia Gorge and spending time with my family. We have two boys, both married, a daughter (getting married), one grandchild and one on the way."
"I am excited to jump in to my next chapter!" she said. "I am grateful for the opportunity to work in public health and especially here in Wasco and Sherman County. We are fortunate to have passionate, dedicated staff."
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