When the Work Gets Heavy: How to Keep Going in Tough Times - Voices 9
A public health professional from a State health department writes candidly about the emotional cost of working under a hostile political climate, and how solidarity and rest can help us to endure.
We continue our series Voices from the Field: Meeting This Moment in Public Health in which we lift the voices of public health professionals reflecting on the realities we’re facing today - and the lessons learned across the arc of their careers.
In this candid reflection, governmental public health professional Kena Fentress speaks to the emotional weight of serving in a system where care and commitment are often met with indifference. After a decade of dedicated service, she offers a quiet but powerful reminder that exhaustion is not failure, and caring for ourselves is essential to sustaining the work.
If you’d like to follow Kena’s lead and share your own perspective on public health in these times, I’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch!
When the work gets heavy: how to keep going in tough times
by Kena Fentress
At the beginning of this year, I received news that my position as a public health professional at a State health department was ending due federal funding cuts. Since then, I’ve felt a growing heaviness at work: not because of the workload itself, but because of the emotional toll of doing public health in the current climate in the United States.
There’s a specific kind of burnout that comes from giving your all in a system where the top-level leadership feels hostile or dismissive. The words and decisions coming from the current administration haven’t just made the work harder - they’ve made it feel more isolating. When you’re in a field that exists to serve and protect people, it’s disheartening to feel like that mission is being undermined.
Like many others in public service, I’ve tried to keep showing up with care and commitment. But there are moments when it’s hard to stay motivated, or to feel hopeful about where we’re headed. That’s not weakness: it’s the cost of caring deeply in a system that doesn’t always reflect our values.
If you’re reading this and it resonates, I want you to know: you’re not alone. The weight you’re carrying is real. The frustration, fatigue, and emotional exhaustion are all valid.
My hope is that we’re all making space to take care of ourselves and each other. That might mean stepping back when you need to. Saying no without guilt. Finding safe spaces to talk it out. Or simply resting.
Public health is more than a job: it’s a calling. But even the most committed among us need care and support to keep going.
So if this year has felt heavy for you too, I see you. I’m with you. And I hope you’re doing what you need to stay grounded.
Kena Fentress is a public health professional with over 10 years of experience, currently serving as Systems Administrator at the Washington State Department of Health. Based in Puyallup, WA, her work centers on building trust, strengthening community connections, and ensuring equitable access to essential public health resources.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent the views of any organization, employer, or institution with which they are affiliated.
If you would like to follow Kena’s example by sharing your perspective on public health right now in our series Voices from the Field: Meeting This Moment in Public Health, please get in touch!
Action steps - a note from Katie
Thank you for reading this newsletter for and about the public health workforce. At this tumultuous time, I’m still really not sure where we go from here. But each time that I publish this newsletter and receive positive feedback from readers, my list of ideas for action steps continues to grow. I will start to compile these suggestions here. As we learn more, let’s keep adding to this list:
Do Kena’s words above inspire you? Would you also like to share your perspective on public health right now? Or write a love letter to public health? Got something to say to or about the public health workforce? Got big feelings about the RIFs or the RTO or the EOs or the BS? I would love to publish your words here as a step towards advocacy and support. Get in touch.
Let’s communicate what public health is and why it matters that so many of us have been forced to leave our jobs. What is your proudest moment in public health? Complete this form to submit your public health story to be used for advocacy.
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I close by emphasising what I said in a previous newsletter:
“At this time of uncertainty for the public health workforce, let’s remember our commitment to science and evidence and data. We know that validating emotions and baggage has a place too, but we need to be able to identify them and distinguish opinion from fact.
Let’s recommit to kindness and mutual support for the public health workforce and beyond. If leaders are trying to sow divisions among us, the best we can do is to respond with empathy, and by strengthening, connecting, and lifting up one another.
Right now, the best I can offer my fellow public health professionals is a place* to gather and reflect and share and vent and organize and ask questions and offer support to one another. We’re going to need that now more than ever.”
*This is a plug for the Public Health Connections Lounge on LinkedIn, where we seek to build community and conversation among public health professionals. Join us.
If you are new around here, Welcome to The Public Health Workforce is Not OK! In this newsletter, I share frank insights and start conversations about the experiences of building a public health career. You can get to know me here and here. Please subscribe, review the archive, and join the conversations in the Lounge. I am committed to keeping this newsletter free for job seekers (at least, for as long as I still have a job).