Hannah Horrigan is an Educational Initiatives Supervisor at the Akron Housing Metropolitan Authority and a proud zippie. Explore her interesting journey, starting with an interest in lock-picking via sociology and moving to skillful and compassionate leadership in our community.
SPEAKERS
Hannah Horrigan, Daniela Jauk-Ajamie
00:13
Jingle
Daniela Jauk-Ajamie 00:55
Welcome to the Why Sociology podcast, I have the big woman joy to sit with our very own Hina. Horrigan, who graduated from the University of Akron, when did you graduate in 2017. So Hannah, tell us, what are you doing? What's your job role?
Hannah Horrigan01:16
All right. It's a mixed field, I would say public and community service, but it's also in the field of early childhood education. I supervise the educational programming at the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority. Here at mha. We house 10% of the children that are under five years old in Summit County, that's a big percentage of those children. And many of those households at a mha do not have equitable access to quality, early childhood programming. And so what we see on the end of their education is an achievement gap, those children aren't scoring as high on their kindergarten readiness assessments. They're not meeting benchmarks at third grade levels, fifth grade levels, and so on. The earlier that we start supporting those kiddos, the better. And so we do that at no cost to those families for free through early childhood, home visiting programming that's evidence based, and we start prenatally and work all the way up until that child enters kindergarten. We also host many family engagement events throughout the community, we spread as far as Twinsburg. And as reach as far as Barberton. So we kind of meet all of our family developments that fall into Summit County. And we sprinkle our events throughout. So that way, everybody gets the opportunity to engage with these events. So we bring out Jungle Terry, we've brought out So Betty do Monday for some interactive African drum experiences, which is very fun holiday events, the whole gamut, you know, we really try to provide them opportunities to engage as a family together. And we also reach out to all of our various community partners that make sure that they have a chance to touch base with these families, too, and say, Hey, we're here for you, here's what we can do for you, too. And then we also host maternal depression support groups. So that is a really big piece of early childhood education is making sure the caregivers are okay. We engage in a lot of community work that is already occurring in the in the Summit County area. And so this is our effort towards that infant vitality, making sure that moms have what they need early on, so that they can take care of the kiddos. So that's kind of on a broad spectrum, what we're doing. And so I supervise that programming, and then I also manage our various partnerships with funders, data collection, and reporting is a really big piece of that. And also just forging those relationships with community agencies to put on programming for our families that we have here. There's a lot.
Daniela Jauk-Ajamie 03:44
That's a lot I'm so impressed. And it's very multifaceted that so how is sociology informing what you do? Do you use sociology?
Hannah Horrigan03:57
I do I feel more so now in my role as supervisor than it did previously. So I'm a supervisor now and have been for about a year, however, I came into this job as a home visitor. So my background in sociology has really given me a framework for the population that we're serving at a higher level, first in my role as a home visitor and working directly with families, having in mind concepts and theories from Blumer, Dubois and understanding class consciousness, systemic oppression, you know, social capital, these are things that in the real world, they're visible, but you won't know if you're not looking or if you're not aware of them. And so, you know, looking at a map of Akron understanding the concept of redlining and see how that lines up with a map of Akron today, and how it overlaps perfectly with poverty stricken neighborhoods and food deserts and things like that. And in order to appropriately serve the families that we do, you really do have to have that historical understanding of how did we get here? Why are we still here? And how can we support these families in moving forward, while we can't maybe we can't change, you know, the systems, what can we do to work around it? Or how can we change the systems, right. And so that's kind of how I feel sociology works in my everyday work. And then on an individual level, right, acknowledging my presence, as a white woman in the home of a black woman living in public housing, and so constantly educating myself checking my privilege, and practicing mindfulness, practicing active listening, those are skills that I got in classes like Matt Lee, you know, love and action would an interesting Sociology course, but very applicable to what we do every day.
Daniela Jauk-Ajamie 05:39
This is so wonderful that you say that applicable, because you're really doing applied sociology, you get to transgress the understanding of inequality, we learn in classes, right, you get to actively work against it, which must be so satisfying. It really is. And it's not where I saw myself initially, I know I'm jumping ahead, but you have more questions. And when I chose sociology, I was really choosing criminology. Because it's a combined, undergraduate degree. It was sociology, criminology and law enforcement. So when I tell people now that that's my degree, that kind of give me a sideways look, like what are you doing here, if your background is criminology, but you know, things like classes like deviant behavior and things like that, I see all of that into the real world in real time, even though it wasn't my initial career trajectory to end up where I am now, I feel this is better suited to my skill set. And it's better suited to what I did take away from my educational experience, you know, the research and that application You say you do a lot of data collection, and probably analysis was, what kind of data are you collecting? What methods are you using?
Hannah Horrigan06:50
All of our programming, as I had mentioned, is evidence based. There are screenings and checkpoints that are required for each family, very specific timelines that they are meant to be required, and completed in. Some of them. Most of them are collected on a narrative basis. So the family is being interviewed the questions, and the home visitor is completing the forms. They're entered into several data systems. And then it's my job to basically pull the data together and track it. So we're tracking progress on several different assessments, a lot of demographic data, very usable demographic data, who are we serving? Why does that matter? We take that data, and our funders require it. So each funder that we have is asking for something a little bit different. So we crunch the data according to what their needs are, or what it is that they are looking to learn from us. And then we utilize that to just show our story. What are we doing, and why is that important?
Daniela Jauk-Ajamie 07:49
I am so happy to learn from you. And you've talked about that a little bit before, but how did you pick sociology?
Hannah Horrigan08:00
So I chose sociology, as I had mentioned, it was paired with the criminology degree, have the funniest story about why criminology interested me. So of course, I loved shows like Criminal Minds and Law and Order SVU when I was in high school, earlier than that a little bit earlier, maybe like late middle school. I did like gymnastics. And I had a coach who was a man employed by the FBI. And he was a locksmith, he was a lock picker. And he trained agents on lock picking techniques and things like that at Quantico. So what a strange connection to that world, you would come back and tell us like the craziest stories, and we were enthralled by it, you know, 13 year old is like, wow, you had to travel to some prints lock themselves in a safe across the world, and you're the world's best lock pickers to you. It's just, you know, the silly stories, and who knows how true they were right. But he was a mentor to me in a way, and really talked about his experience with the FBI and what it was like to or what it could be like to become an agent. And I felt he kind of had pushed me in that direction, interest wise. And so and so I started kind of tailoring my coursework around that interest. But as I got older, I kind of realized I'm not really great at managing conflict. And I'm not sure my personality is suited for police work. And so as I got to know, the program a little bit more for sociology and learn a little bit more about different career paths you could take, I thought, You know what, I like academia a lot. I really like this research, and I'm very interested in pursuing it further. So I thought, I'll go to grad school. And then I had my daughter and I said, I'm not going to grad school. And I thought, you know, I'm gonna find a job out in the community. So during my undergrad work, Dr. Lee introduced me a little bit to the community work in Akron, I kind of got my toes wet and learned a little bit more about the various agencies in Akron that really support Akron and keep it upheld. And I really enjoyed that part of it, I really enjoyed the research that I did was sociology club. So I thought, you know, like, let me see what I can do here in Akron in the community. And then maybe I'll do graduate school in the future. At some point, my mom's friend works here at a mha and really talked up the agency and I'm like, this is a great place to work. I'm very happy here, it would really suit what you're interested in. And so through the Excel Center, I got an internship. Thank you, Carolyn. And here I am six years later, I found a permanent position as the home visitor. And yeah, took this promotion a year ago. So that's kind of my my strange journey to where I started and how I got here. This is so beautiful, Hannah, because it's also a story how you were a very engaged student, you really took opportunities of extracurricular activities, you mentioned the sociology club, you were out there with the Excel Center. And that just really blossomed into real income, right? Yes, into a real career. Yes, absolutely. That's already an amazing advice for a student because one of my questions is, what advice would you give to social majors take every experience as an opportunity to learn something to gain experience that is, you know, marketable in a way, or if you don't feel it's marketable, find a way to make it marketable, you know, building a resume. And finding a way to make yourself stand out is so much more valuable than I even realized when I was actively doing it. I did those things, I liked them when I was interested in them. But now that I am here, in this role, I realized I wouldn't have got here without those valuable experiences, you know, they really prepared me for leadership, they really prepared me for putting myself out there in a way that maybe I wasn't comfortable with yet. But I felt I could be eventually, if I hadn't practiced that when it was still practice and not a really detrimental piece of my job. You know, you can't practice when you're doing the work you have to perform right at that point, if you don't perform, your livelihood is in jeopardy. So I'm glad that you take that time, right, take the time during your undergraduate practice skills and take everything as an opportunity to learn something or to to how's this gonna serve me later? Right? I feel that that was very valuable. That is such an amazing advice, in a very exciting is that you took this leadership position?
Daniela Jauk-Ajamie 12:50
And do you think your sociology degree helped you advance more quickly?
Hannah Horrigan12:55
I do. I do believe that without the experience that I had, with research, specifically, having an understanding of higher level thinking, being able to analyze data, apply framework to it, and move forward. If I didn't have that understanding, and I only applied for this job with the experience of my work as a home visitor. It's not competitive, right? You know, there's, there's any other any other homebuyers or anyone with that work experience could apply for the job, and they could do the job, okay. But the applied piece of the job itself really requires you to be adept immediately, you know, you take this job the program is running now. You don't have time to learn how to how to do the job for a year, you have to learn how to do the job right away. And so I think without that experience, I couldn't have jumped right in and just done what needed to be done in order for the program to be successful. And for families to have what they need. Without it, maybe our funding would have been at risk, right? If I didn't have the ability to look at the data, write a grant report and obtain the money to pay our staff or to pay for programming. We wouldn't be here anymore. And so it really requires you to come in with something different, something different than work experience and something that again, you're marketable. You want to be as diverse a candidate as you can be. So taking advantage of opportunities during undergraduate work to participate in research studies. With sociology club, we did research we practice presenting it at you know, NCSA and all of the various research events that they put on throughout the community. I think it would have taken me a lot longer to be successful at doing this job which could have hindered my ability to keep the job
Daniela Jauk-Ajamie 14:55
Absolutely important what you say and fascinating In and also for us as department who, you know, learn what needs to be fostered more and maybe invigorated student research with sociology club and NCSA. I take this away as a professional input. What professional networks are you part of
Hannah Horrigan15:21
I would love to count them all, so many. And it's really a requirement of this position. As a role in the community. We're a leading force in early childhood education just because we have access to so many kids. So I sit on a number of school readiness coalition's throughout the county. And those are districts specific. So like Barberton, Twinsburg, Samak, your Akron public, so those are just specifically where our kids go to school at. So we participate in those. There's a number of committees throughout the county, ran through some education initiatives that are related to early childhood education out of school time, programming, infant vitality. And so myself and my counterpart, we participate in those kinds of intandem, during COVID. And specifically, while there was a lot of social unrest in the community, I participated in the mayor's office lead racial equity and social justice committee Task Force. We were responsible for writing the recommendations made to the mayor's office as to what changes were to be made, one of the results of which was the citizens Oversight Board. So that was really exciting to see that come together, within the community. And to see, like so many, so many very important leaders within the community working toward the same thing, regardless of racial status, you know, employment, you know, field, it was a very diverse board. And it was really neat to just kind of participate in that you really get to shape community, your work has a real impact. And then just so happy to know that as sociologies with an understanding of social inequalities, seeing where you are sitting, and you get to infuse in shape our city for students who are now getting interested in working for mha. What advice do you have, how could one be in touch to an internship, we post positions often, so if you are interested, reach out to myself, I can direct anybody to our career listenings. But they're also posted on our Akron housing.org website. We're also working with our HR department to really expand our marketing for specific positions in what we call resident services. So that's really where that sociology piece comes in. And we have many positions here Ha, right, from operations, property management, maintenance. So if you're looking to really flex that sociology, background, resident services is where you would look, we have service coordination programs that are focused around family goal setting, and essentially supporting families or individuals through their next step of life. We support prenatally all the way up to elderly and disabled populations through resident services programming. And we are looking to really expand what we are capable of because only 40 People can only accomplish so much or can only support so many people. But it is a goal of the agency in our department to really change that to change our capacity to serve getting involved in any other community work. In the meantime, if you're waiting for a position at ama to open, there are so many valuable opportunities to gain experience. And to get to know those resources in the community. It does take time to train someone, but if you come to us already knowing how to help people in the community where they can go for certain things like utility assistance, or food resources, mental health or you know, job job building skills coming to us with that knowledge just makes you a very marketable or preferred candidate specifically the summit like neighborhood, there's a ton of programming in the Summit Lake neighborhood, that they can always use help. And it's a beautiful, beautiful community to be a part of, we have reach Opportunity Center out there that houses a lot of programming, getting involved in any of the programming that's happening out there kind of gets us to get to know you. And, you know, we love to hire people that are invested in the families that we house. So yeah, that's kind of where I would recommend and be flexible in your search, you know, open yourself up. I didn't expect to end up where I am today. But I'm glad that I did you know, stay flexible and make every interaction every opportunity, you know, a learning experience.
Daniela Jauk-Ajamie 19:40
Wonderful, powerful super advice that we can also integrate. And I think some of that is already happening. Many classes at the source department are very service learning oriented. In fact, we have a requirement for experiential learning at our department. So we work with community organizations to now learn that I heard that this is really helpful on the job market is . Is there anything I should have asked you? Is there anything you want to add?
Hannah Horrigan20:08
I just want to really highlight how valuable the staff that are there and the sociology department. Dr. Peralta was such a mentor for me very grateful for the time that he invested into myself and even now today, you know, we're working on maybe collaborating on some certification courses for our staff with the Center for conflict management. So just that continued mentorship that continued partnership invest in their students. Dr. Erickson, Dr. Lee was amazing. Dr. Jody Henderson Ross, just really I took away so much from the way they presented themselves and the way that they really connected with their students. They made sure that you know, you left their classroom having learned something, you know, take advantage of your professors. You know, sociology department is very lucky to have the staff that they do.
Daniela Jauk-Ajamie 20:54
Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day. This was an amazing interview and learn so much and so will everyone listening I thank you. Thank you Thank you for tuning into why sociology thank you for more on many interviews with applied and clinical sociologists and see you next time