Voinovich Scholars get head start on careers at Partnership for Community-Based Prevention

The personal trajectories of three Ohio University students highlight the benefits of the hands-on work they accomplished at the University as they look toward health-related careers.

Like most college students, MacKenzie Kay, Madison Wells and Noel Rozic had a general idea of what they expected to gain from their higher education degrees. All three Voinovich Scholars found their participation in the Partnership for Community-Based Prevention (P4CBP) at the George V. Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service helped to solidify their goals.

Two of the students – both the first in their families to go to college – are set to soon graduate and are aiming for macro-level jobs in the field of social work, where they hope to help build community-level supports. The third is currently enrolled in OHIO’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine and expects to graduate with a medical degree in 2029.

The scholars all pointed to their experiences working with Voinovich School faculty and professional staff at P4CBP, which teams with external experts to address behavioral health prevention and promotion, as providing a holistic view of those issues that dovetailed with their academic and professional advancement.

Holly Raffle, professor of leadership and public service and director of the P4CBP, said the students’ advancements underscore the diversity in the types of careers that scholars end up choosing along the way.

“We’re seeing this Voinovich Scholar pathway is not just yielding future public servants, but also future professionals in a variety of settings,” she said, noting previous P4CBP scholars have pursued careers in medicine, law, allied health professions, ministry and divinity, and higher education.

Raffle said the students’ examples show the scholars program can not only bolster decided career paths but also offer insight into other alternatives.

“The goal is, no matter what you want to do, being a Voinovich Scholar can be good for you,” she said.

MacKenzie Kay will graduate with a master's degree in social work

Kay, a Voinovich Undergraduate Research Scholar from 2021-2024, enjoyed her work with P4CBP so much she stayed on as a graduate assistant.

“When I graduated in 2024, I decided I wasn’t done yet,” she said. Kay will earn a master’s degree in social work this spring.

Kay, a graduate of McClain High School in Greenfield and a first-generation college student, said she began her higher education journey online in the early days of the pandemic with the thought of going into nursing with a focus on public health.

By chance she responded to an email and ended up attending an interview with P4CBP staff that would eventually lead her to adjust her career ambitions.

“I kind of fell into it, but it was like the happiest accident,” she said.

Her job with P4CBP helped her focus on the kind of social work that fits her goals of working on the prevention side.

“The approach is to reach people before they use for the first time,” Kay said.

During her time at the University, Kay became an Ohio Certified Prevention Specialist Assistant and at the end of the semester she will be ready to sit for the exam to become an Ohio Certified Prevention Specialist.

“So this is a licensure path for that kind of work,” she said. By the end of the semester she will have the required number of hours to sit for the next exam.

Upon graduation, she is aiming for a job in social work at the “macro” level of public health versus “micro” clinical level of directly working with clients and directing them to resources, she said.

“I do really like what I do here with the people at P4CBP to kind of push professional continuing education. I’ve done a lot of work in stigma reduction in communities around substance use disorder,” she said.

Kay said P4CBP “played an overwhelming significant role in how I found my professional identity.”

“I wouldn’t have known how related public health and social work were if I had not made the switch to social work. It really helped me along my college journey,” she said. Her work with the group has included program evaluation, grant writing and other “real world” experiences.”

“I’m not doing pencil-pushing. I’m doing real work,” Kay said.

Madison Wells gained important insights into career opportunities

Wells, another “first gen” college student who graduated as valedictorian from nearby Alexander High School, found similar career inspiration during their time at OHIO’s Voinovich School.

The undergraduate Scholar and Honors Tutorial College student is also in line for an advanced Prevention Specialist certificate as they prepare to graduate this spring and continue taking courses toward a master’s degree in social work.

Like Kay, Wells only had a vague idea of where they were headed when enrolling at OHIO before finding their way to the P4CBP program.

“I would say that’s really when my academic career – my professional career – changed,” they said. Before that, “I really didn’t know much about being in a professional setting. I was put in this position and they taught me very quickly what was appropriate. That is when I started to develop what I actually wanted to do with my life.”

Through the group’s initiatives, Wells quickly learned that social work covers a “very vast, diverse profession” that doesn’t just deal with things like child protective services, for example.

The experience “really gave me a look at macro social work, and that is something I would not have had the opportunity to see and know that’s where I’m meant to be,” Wells said. “I got to work alongside professionals who have been in the career longer than I’ve been alive and kind of get that insider knowledge and understand these systems I’ve never worked with before. It’s a great privilege to see that and understand that at my age.”

Along with the experience of working at P4CBP, Wells took full advantage of the time spent at OHIO. Their academic resume includes a leadership position on the Collegiate Mental Health Advisory Board of Ohio, which helps inform the state program for student safety and mental health of students’ perspectives and lived experiences on campuses. Wells also got trained as a Question, Persuade, Refer suicide prevention program instructor.

“I hope all of the skills I’ve acquired working at the Voinovich job achieve my ultimate goal to advocate for social justice, equity and equality through my career and take these skills to advance the quality of life for individuals in underserved communities,” Wells said.

Noel Rozic is applying skills from the program toward preparing for a career in medicine

Rozic, a recent OHIO graduate with a pre-med degree, is on a different career path than Kay and Wells, but her praise of the knowledge gained working with P4CBP highlights its relevance for any student pursuing a health-related career.

Rozic, a graduate of Chardon High School, is currently enrolled at OHIO’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine campus in Cleveland with plans to earn a medical degree in 2029.

During her time at the University, the OHIO alumni connection led Rozic to Raffle and subsequently a pilot project on suicide prevention training that the student linked to her onboarding with a professional fraternity – a path that led her to the Voinovich Scholars program and P4CBP during her junior and senior years.

“When I became a scholar that was my project,” she said of the “Question, Persuade, Refer” program. Rozic ran the pilot group and wrote a research paper on the initiative.

Her work with P4CBP and a focus on “social determinants of health” in the social medicine curriculum, tied in nicely with her goals in osteopathic medicine and its holistic health approach, Rozic said.

She learned that medicine is only one part of the overall health picture for individuals. Health access and equity, education access, community impacts and personal finances also play key roles, she said.

“Working with the Partnership for Community-Based Prevention, I got to see more of a broad overview of those social determinants of health,” Rozic said. “We focused on mental health, but then how do all the other aspects of the social determinants of health impact mental health and therefore your overall health.”

Rozic said she’s interested in focusing her medical degree on women’s health and research into post-menopausal women.

“I am using those skills from the Voinovich School and applying them into an adjacent kind of research looking at certain aspects of the social determinants of health like finances and class,” she said.

“My time at the Voinovich School was well worth it. I had great connections. I met great people. I got to do something that was not explicitly medical research, but it was very adjacent. And still those things I learned at the Voinovich School are still very relevant to what we are learning and doing in school, in medicine now,” Rozic added of her P4CBP experience.

“If you do want to go to medical school, it does relate to a lot of the aspects of being a physician and taking care of patients – not just at one level, but how those things impact your patients’ care," Rozic said. "It’s just a really good overview of things that are important to how you take care of people.”