During my summer at OkaySo, I primarily worked on developing social media campaigns strategies and an educational webinar for those working with young people. OkaySo focuses on providing teens with barrier removing access to trained health experts they couldn't reach any other way using innovative technology and youth-informed design. They envision a world where all individuals know and love their bodies, identities, and selves so that they can live freely and authentically as who they truly are. My projects were directly connected to the organization's mission as I managed the organization's social media platforms to engage in new user acquisition, draft several health education campaigns as well as two fundraising campaigns. My project outcomes helped to expand the reach OkaySo had on its social media platforms, letting potential new users know OkaySo is a safe and confidential resource for them, and assisted adults in making sure they meet the needs of the young people they work with. During this internship, I worked closely with the co-founder of OkaySo, Elise Schuster, to outline phases of the health education campaigns, and webinar development into achievable metrics and determine project outcomes. These outcomes included creating and scheduling health education campaigns OkaySo will use as the fiscal year continues, and a webinar with activities worksheet OkaySo will offer to community partners and agencies working to uplift youth.

Public Health Interventions studio, a course from the CORE curriculum at Mailman, allowed me to consider multiple dimensions of how interventions can improve health and quality of life. Specifically, when creating and drafting my social media campaigns to promote health, taking on a systems thinking approach allowed me to consider, evaluate, and understand the complex systems interacting and affecting young people's health and quality of life, especially youth part of the LGBTQIA+ community. In developing OkaySo's webinar, utilizing a causal pathway framework from my Public Health Program Planning course assisted me in not only developing the webinar starting with the end, but allowed me to see what gaps needed to be addressed as I developed this webinar. To supplement the webinar development, I also researched Adult Learning Theory to understand learning motivation adults. Finally, Personal Leadership, along with Relationships and Spaces of Care, informed and solidified for me the importance of uplifting and centering the communities I was working with. During my time at my internship, I was privileged enough to sit down and listen to young queer people discuss the challenges they are facing regarding the onslaught of anti-trans legislation, but also learn how their queer joy is an act of resistance and resilience. Their experiences are what I held at the center as I developed health promotion content. Having insight from these classes were extremely valuable for identifying how to apply the theoretical into practice.

The projects I worked on were largely of a creative nature and, at times, I found this very challenging. By the nature of work, it required creativity and exploring diverse avenues to see what would capture audience attention on different social media platforms. At different moments in my work I would reach a creative block, unsure of what direction to take campaigns. This demanded that I think outside of the lens I may have been working in. Other challenges I faced were of a technical nature. Sometimes I did not have the capacity to steward what I was envisioning for a campaign. Other times, I needed to solve problems in unique ways to reach my vision. I also noticed a feature about myself in that I prefer working in a team whereas my work was nearly independent. It felt daunting at times to develop campaigns and the webinar because I wanted to bounce ideas off of another person. In this case, I was fortunate that when I connected with my director, they were amazing in providing feedback and support when it was needed.

It was an incredibly invaluable experience to work at the intersection of the nonprofit sector, sexual health, health promotion, and technology. Throughout my experience with OkaySo, I explored new methods in new user acquisition, assisted in furthering funding campaigns, promoted OkaySo's mission through content creation and addressing real- world events affecting young people, created a cadence in respect to their presence on social media platforms, and developed a webinar based on Adult Learning Theory for organizations and adults working with young people. With support from the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise and practicum guidance from my director and supervisor, I was able to fulfill my overall summer practicum goals and produce tangible products to showcase OkaySo's impact in helping young people.

I pursued an internship opportunity at OkaySo because I wanted to explore the bridge between my experience in adolescent sexual health, nonprofit and technology. Throughout the experience, I saw the gap OkaySo was filling in meeting young people where they were at, and I was a part of helping young people with the personal and intimate questions they may have, providing a space that is safe and confidential. I have no doubt that I will utilize the experiences and skills I developed in my time with OkaySo as I further my skills in community engagement, program development, and assessing programmatic impact.