South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Vanessa Moss Palm Health Foundation
Vanessa Moss was recently named communications manager at the Palm Health Foundation in West Palm Beach. It’s more than just a getup-and-go-to-work-job, says Moss, who started with the organization as its communications coordinator in 2016. Moss says she is contributing to a cause greater than herself; meeting people and developing relationships that help in her outreach to the community during the foundation’s annual Better Health campaigns. She gets to use her strengths, she says, which in addition to being sociable, include writing and creative thinking.
Resume
Experience: I began my professional career as a national service volunteer with a literacy-based AmeriCorps program in Boynton Beach. During my terms of service, I worked at a West Palm Beach-based nonprofit called Vita Nova Inc. I then transitioned into the roles of Community Health Educator and Teen Outreach Program Facilitator for Urban League of Palm Beach County and Planned Parenthood of South East and North Florida.
Education: University of Missouri — Columbia in Columbia, Mo.; B.J. in Magazine Journalism and B.A. in English
On the job
What I do: I work closely with the vice president of communications to develop and implement an integrated internal and external communications and PR plan, including public health campaigns; serve as a spokesperson, web administrator and manage the voice and personality of all aspects of the foundation’s online and social media presence.
What’s new: The way that we are thinking and talking about health. Recently, the foundation changed its name, from Palm Healthcare Foundation to Palm Health Foundation. The word, health care, alludes to a focus on acute care and clinical settings, where a person’s health issue is being treated rather than prevented.
Strategies
Create opportunity: My service in AmeriCorps radically changed my world view. I was introduced to Palm Beach County’s nonprofit community, where I learned about trauma informed care and how to present and provide life-skill services. I worked with and related to diverse populations; taught English as a second language, and developed my own lesson plans from scratch.
Build on lessons learned: With every position I have held since, I have carried the lessons I learned in my AmeriCorps program, from the best way to provide comfort to a person who is crying, to an issue as practical as learning how to successfully network and advocate for myself in the professional world.