Injury Prevention Service Internships

About the Injury Prevention Service

The Injury Prevention (IP) Service, which is a part of the Level 1 Trauma Center at Children's Health, is dedicated to preventing unintentional injury, the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in children under 14. The IP Service is made up of a team of multidisciplinary health professionals who are dedicated to the community that they serve and are committed to making life better for children where they live, play, and grow.  With great dedication, the IP Service seeks to become the leading resource for pediatric injury prevention through its four “pillars of prevention”: hospital-based services, community outreach, injury control research, and legislative and grassroots advocacy.

Overview of the internship

 Interns are responsible for co-planning and co-implementing injury prevention projects under the direction of an Injury Prevention Coordinator and/or Research Scientist; co-facilitating collaboration with community groups; presenting safety information to the public; and assisting in hospital based programs as assigned. Injury Prevention Interns must have: well developed organizational skills with a solid orientation to detail, the ability to effectively present information to a variety of groups, must be exceptionally reliable and committed, must have good written and verbal skills, must be a self-starter with a strong desire to learn in a team-oriented environment and most importantly must be able to work well with children.

• We offer spring, summer, and fall internships
• All internships are at the Children’s Health Dallas campus
• Practicum length and hours vary by school requirements
• Each intern will complete a project that will be determined based on the interns interested and the needs of the department

• Requires standing, walking, or moving around the work place and other locations outside the hospital.

Possible Projects

Projects include developing, implementing and evaluating evidence-based safety initiatives geared towards preventing traumatic injuries. Interns are fully immersed in the Trauma experience from the ER to the operating room to rounding with and interviewing injured patients as a means of reducing recidivism rates. Projects may also include injury data mining and geographic mapping at the direction of the Researchers. In legislative years, projects may revolve around the implementation of grassroots efforts around public policy strategy in the Texas Legislature.

• Recent intern projects students have complete include:
  • The evaluation of printed educational materials by interviewing families in the emergency department
  • Working closely with community pools and the Know Before You Go and Make a Splash teams to create water safety curriculum that will be used by community educators
  • Researching current safe sleep disparities and communities needs to create a safe sleep Train-the-Trainer presentation and curriculum
  • Working closely with the research team to clean and sort important trauma data and map needs of the community

Currently Affiliated Schools

We currently are contracted with the below schools:

• UT Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW)
• Texas A&M University (TAMU)
• University of North Texas (UNT)
• Southern Methodist University (SMU)

Don’t see your school? Contact us to talk about your school and current program. The preferred majors or degrees for an internship are in: Health Education, Public Health, Education, Public Relations or other health-related majors.

For more information/Questions

Marisa Abbe, PhD, Manager
marisa.abbe@childrens.com214-456-7936