There are only 24 hours in a day, and like many instructor-practitioners, Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Public Relations Department Tricia Richards-Service (she/her) spends many of those hours committing herself to teaching, the community and her family.

From assisting with vaccination efforts in Philadelphia, to organizing a resource hub for any human service need a Northeastern Pennsylvania resident may need, to speaking in her daughter’s high school class, Richards-Service is always looking for ways to help the community.

Recently, with grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Health Resources & Services Administration, Klein College of Media and Communication has partnered with Temple’s Lewis Katz School of Medicine and College of Public Health to form the vaccine hesitancy committee. 

The goal of the committee is to reach communities across Philadelphia that have low vaccination rates. The Katz School identifies community partners that can help the effort, and Klein helps decide what materials they need and how they are going to reach those partners.

“I want to increase my level of service to the university, so I’m looking for opportunities, and this was one way that I could use my health communication background to do that,” Richards-Service said. She has had a role in community outreach and preparing messages and flyers.

Also on the committee is Senior Associate Dean Deborah Cai (she/her). Cai is glad that this project has brought her and Richards-Service together when their paths might not have otherwise crossed. “She knows her stuff,” Cai said. “She brings a lot of knowledge and experience, as well.”

In addition to being active in the Philadelphia community, Richards-Service is active in her home community of Clarks Summit in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Currently, she is working with Jason Harlen (he/him) of Wyoming Valley Alcohol and Drug Services to launch the Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) Resource Hub.

Richards-Service came highly recommended to Harlen to write a grant proposal for the project by his web designer from Halibut Blue. In March 2019, they submitted their application for a grant to the AllOne Foundation and began receiving funding to start creating the NEPA Resource Hub.

The NEPA Resource Hub is intended to be a centralized location to provide information for human service needs in seven Pennsylvania counties such as substance use, gambling, food insecurity and mental health. With Richards-Service’s background in health communication and Harlen’s background in drug and alcohol counseling, the pair assembled a task force committee to start bringing Harlen’s vision to life.

Currently, they are in the process of filming informational videos on the different topics the NEPA Resource Hub will cover. The subjects of the videos are carefully considered and are often representative of clients that may utilize the NEPA Resource Hub. Richards-Service noted that they are fortunate to have people on the task force from fields such as criminal justice, retail, education and more that represent the areas they are trying to serve.

Another large part of creating the NEPA Resource Hub is the compilation of organizations in the seven counties the NEPA Resource Hub will cover. So far, they have reached out to over 300 organizations to see if they are interested in collaborating and sharing updated relevant information to go on the eventual NEPA Resource Hub website. Once the website is tested and approved, Richards-Service will create the community outreach plan for introducing it to the public – a task for which she is very excited.

“The vision for this website is it is going to be dynamic with content added on a regular basis,” Richards-Service said. “I’m really privileged to be a part of the task force.”

Harlen loves that he gets to work with Richards-Service. She goes above and beyond and is always there to offer a different perspective when he is stuck on an idea. “She is extremely intelligent,” he said. “I just think that when you talk about partnering with somebody in this instance, she’s the blueprint partner.”

Richards-Service has many titles, including “professor,” “volunteer,” and “mom.” At back-to-school night at Abington Heights High School where her daughter attends, Richards-Service’s daughter’s comparative world studies teacher mentioned that the class would be learning about fake news, or as Richards-Service calls it, falsified news.

Richards-Service became interested in the possibility of speaking to her daughter’s class and the other section of the class about this particular topic. Her presentation included content on how to judge the credibility of a website, what makes something “newsworthy,” the influence of social media and news bias.

“I want to help raise a generation of media-literate consumers,” Richards-Service said. As a bonus, her presence at the school may benefit recruitment efforts for Temple. At the same back-to-school night, two parents approached her when they saw the Temple “T” on her face mask. Turns out, they had kids who are public relations students at Temple, and Richards-Service knew them!

For now, Richards-Service will continue her work with the vaccine hesitancy committee and the NEPA Resource Hub, which will hopefully launch its website by the end of the year. Until then, you can find her with her husband and two children in Northeastern Pennsylvania, that is when she isn’t making the long commute to Philadelphia to teach the next generation of public relations professionals.