Title
Award 2021 Employee of the Year to Cristal Ocampo Ruiz, Chatham County Public Health Department - Siler City Clinic, Foreign Language Interpreter & Immunization Tracking Coordinator
Abstract
Action Requested: Award 2021 Employee of the Year to Cristal Ocampo-Ruiz, Chatham County Public Health Department - Siler City Clinic, Foreign Language Interpreter & Immunization Tracking Coordinator
Introduction & Background: Cristal Ocampo Ruiz started at the Chatham County Public Health Department on May 31, 2016 as a Processing Assistant at the Siler City Clinic. On August 17, 2020, she transferred to the Interpreter position. Cristal was nominated by Zach Deaton, Clinical and Community Health Services Division Director. According to Deaton's nomination:
I would not be able to do my job, and the Public Health Department would not be able to function, without the work of Cristal Ocampo-Ruiz. She is on the ball as the lead foreign language interpreter and document translator for CCPHD and always provides good, clean translations for me to use in the massive amount of communications we do. She was also a critical part of the planning discussion we had about translations earlier this year.
I don't experience this side of it much, but she also picked up the role of Immunization Tracking Coordinator this year. That's a lot of hours and time spent calling and doing due diligence to ensure the young folks in Chatham are immunized. Cristal is also very involved in our outreach efforts, specifically to our sizable Hispanic/Latinx community.
She may not be the flashiest choice for Employee of the Year, but she is definitely deserving. Our folks who provide translation/interpreting mean we can be more equitable in our services, and that's a facet of our work we can't really quantify. Of course, we can count how many clients we serve in our clinic who need interpreter services, but we can't count how many are reached, educated, and served by material translations, or ...
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