{"id":8799,"date":"2018-10-16T08:43:49","date_gmt":"2018-10-16T13:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/?p=8799"},"modified":"2018-10-16T08:43:49","modified_gmt":"2018-10-16T13:43:49","slug":"revisit-jessica-fulton-on-working-on-social-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2018\/10\/16\/revisit-jessica-fulton-on-working-on-social-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisit: Jessica Fulton on Working on Social Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jessica Fulton \/ The Joint Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Revisit this March 2018 interview with Jessica Fulton to celebrate her new position at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies<\/a> as their Economic Policy Director. As their twitter description puts it the Joint Center is currently focused on the future of work and congressional staff diversity. Jessica generously gave her time last spring to Framingham State University students seeking to learn about careers in public policy for Black women.<\/em><\/p>\n

Last month I got to interview Jessica Fulton<\/a> via Skype to learn more about her career and her work. She is the External Relations Director at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Equitable Growth<\/a> is a research and analysis organization that is dedicated to finding ways to promote broad-based economic growth. Before Jessica was at EG, she was the Outreach Director at the DC Fiscal Policy Institute<\/a>, an organization that focuses on budget issues for the District of Columbia. Jessica is an alum of the University of Chicago, where she received her Bachelor\u2019s degree in Economics, and of DePaul University, where she earned a Masters in Economic Policy Analysis. Our conversation\u2014and the interview below\u2014focused on my desire to get some pointers on how more young women of color can make a difference in social policy.<\/p>\n

EO: <\/strong>What are your top pieces of advice to young minority women seeking to work in social policy?<\/p>\n

JF:<\/strong> If you\u2019re able, try to get an internship in DC so that you\u2019re able to learn more about how things work here. There are a few organizations and Members of Congress that pay their interns, and that\u2019s obviously ideal, but many don\u2019t. If you\u2019re unable to find a paid internship, and can\u2019t afford to take an unpaid one, consider alternate ways of getting into policy work. I know people who got their start by working in a paid position on a campaign of a candidate they really believed in. Others found entry level assistant positions to get their foot in the door. You can also consider getting an unpaid internship and supplementing it with a part time job, which is what I did.<\/p>\n

Also, it\u2019s much easier to get a job in DC if you\u2019re actually in DC<\/em>. It\u2019s really expensive to live here, but if you can come sleep on a friend\u2019s couch for a bit, you can set up interviews, informational conversations, and networking opportunities that could get you some meaningful connections. You should also try applying for jobs with a local address on your resume if possible.<\/p>\n

EO: <\/strong>How do you advise people to zero in on areas of focus?<\/p>\n

JF:<\/strong> I think one of the most important things that you can do is to start to get to know people who are working on the topics that excite you most. Ask people you know for introductions to people who might be willing to sit down with you to do informational interviews. If you don\u2019t have connections already, think about your networks. Are there alumni from your university who might be willing to speak with you? Do your professors know people who work in social policy? Talking to those people about what they do and what their days look like can be a great way to figure out what you want to do.<\/p>\n

You should also try to sign up for newsletters from the particular policy organizations or Members of Congress that you\u2019re interested in. That way, you can get to know more about the topics different organizations work on and what they actually do. This could be helpful in future interviews, but also may help you to figure out which specific issue areas you have a passion for.<\/p>\n

EO: <\/strong>Why are young minority women so important to the work of social policy? \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

JF:<\/strong> A good number of social policy issues disproportionately affect people of color, yet there are usually very few of us in the room when the problems or the solutions are being discussed. And while things are slowly getting better, often women of color, especially black women, aren\u2019t at the decision making tables even if they are part of a policy organization. I think that\u2019s actually really important. For example, when I walk into a room, I\u2019m bringing my education and work experience, but I\u2019m also bringing my life experience and that of my friends and family members. The other folks in the room have important perspectives as well, but my friends, family members, and even myself, are more likely to have experienced certain obstacles and situations that are more common in minority communities. So when I\u2019m thinking about problems and solutions, I can\u2019t help but to look at it through that lens as well. And I think in the end, when you consider how any kind of problem solving works, the most effective solution is one where you\u2019ve considered a diverse set of perspectives to arrive at your conclusion.<\/p>\n

Jessica Fulton is<\/em> now Economic Policy Director for the Joint Center.\u00a0 You can follow her on twitter at @JessicaJFulton, and follow them on @JointCenter. Eunice Owusu is a Council on Contemporary Families Public Affairs Intern and a 2018 graduate of Framingham State University in Sociology with a minor in Political Science.
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Revisit this March 2018 interview with Jessica Fulton to celebrate her new position at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies as their Economic Policy Director. As their twitter description puts it the Joint Center is currently focused on the future of work and congressional staff diversity. Jessica generously gave her time last spring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21108],"tags":[32530,12865,36,13,22244,9084],"class_list":["post-8799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nice-work","tag-black-women","tag-careers","tag-economics","tag-inequality","tag-internships","tag-public-policy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8799"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8803,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8799\/revisions\/8803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}