Update from SOPHE President Michelle S. Williams

In my first letter to you, I asked our students and recent graduates to remember why they chose public health education. I have been thinking since about the question that always comes next: what do I actually do with that conviction on an ordinary Tuesday morning?

A why without a date on the calendar is just a feeling. So this month, let me hand you some dates.

For our field, October is essentially one continuous week. The SOPHE Advocacy Summit runs October 17 – 19 in Washington, DC, and National Health Education Week begins that same Monday. That overlap is not a scheduling accident. Advocacy and education are the same act performed for different audiences.

Here is how to use it:

• Come to the Summit. Whether you have never contacted a legislator or you do it monthly, the sessions will meet you where you are.
• Can’t travel? Your legislator has a district office. Advocacy has never required a plane ticket. Twenty minutes at home counts.
• Bring someone newer than you. A student who watches advocacy done well once will do it for the next thirty years.
• Celebrate NHEW out loud. Post the work. Most Americans cannot describe what a health education specialist does, and that is ours to correct, not theirs.
• Find your chapter. National sets direction, but chapters do the work where you actually live.

I know what many of you are carrying right now. Positions eliminated, grants ended, programs that exist on paper with no one left to run them. It is reasonable to wonder whether showing up in October changes any of that.

Here is what I believe: a why that stays private does not protect a budget, change a policy, or reach the person who needs us. Ours is a field that has always had to explain itself, and the explaining is not a distraction from the work: It is the work.

In August I said your why matters more than ever. It does. October is where it becomes how. I hope to see you in DC.