Jacob Parks, Public Health Coordinator

 

Jacob began his career in healthcare during high school, where he quickly learned that helping others improve their quality of life, or simply living out their days in happiness, was an amazing blessing to be a part of. During High School he trained to become a CNA then CMT and upon graduation entered as a non-traditional student in an LPN program.

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Over his 32 years in healthcare, he has experience working in various roles in the healthcare setting. This includes acute care, long term care, home health, Independent Living, and finally with the Federally Qualified Healthcare Centers.

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Mr. Parks served as a manager of FQHC (Federally Qualified Health Centers) clinics and their Mobile Health Center (MHC). That Mobile Health Center offered healthcare in remote rural settings, to people without homes, and served the Plain Clothes populations in NW Missouri. It was also used to help provide relief work and was also an integral part of helping with the pandemic. When COVID broke out the MHC was used as a self-contained testing unit that traveled through rural MO to help test group homes, nursing homes, meat packing facilities, and rural populations in NW Missouri. This traveling allowed him to experience working with a culturally diverse population with various ethnic, racial, and linguistical backgrounds.

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Mr. Parks also served as the data coordinator then project director for the planning and implementation of the Rural Communities Opioid Response Program (RCORP) grant. Here he helped form the Northwest Missouri Rural Health Consortium which was focused on bringing together multiple agencies and community partners from all over NW Missouri to help form a coalition to combat the opioid epidemic.

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Mr. Parks is a man who places special emphasis on spiritual things in life, his family, and the great outdoors of rural MO. He has been married to his wife for 18 years, has three children, one son-in-law, 13 chickens, one dog, one cat, and a pig.