The Good Table At Home: Interview with Brian Campbell-Miller, Contact Tracer
by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table
Brian Campbell-Miller wears a lot of hats: he’s the Moderator of The Good Table UCC (President of the Board of Directors), and recently was hired as a Contact Tracer for Contra Costa County.
Contact tracers are a very important resource in a multi-pronged approach to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Contact tracers need to quickly locate and talk with the patients, assist in arranging for patients to isolate themselves, and work with patients to identify people with whom the patients have been in close contact so the contact tracer can locate them.
I interviewed Brian to learn more about contact tracing, how it works, and the service it provides to our community.
How did you become a contact tracer, Brian? This is something relatively new that we’ve not had to do a lot of before, so I’m curious.
It actually started because I got laid off from my county job — I’m pursuing a Masters in Library Science, so I was working as a Library Assistant in a county library. When the pandemic started, the library changed its model to only be open for book pickup and dropoff, so a lot of the staff was laid off.
Fortunately, the county has a program that matches laid off county workers with hiring managers for other county jobs. I had four or five interviews with hiring managers for different jobs before finding my contact tracing position.
How has the contact tracing program grown since COVID-19?
It’s interesting: it started with eight workers who were doing outreach for tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases originally. But since the pandemic, the department has grown to over two hundred workers in Contra Costa County alone.
Wow! So what was the training like to become a contact tracer?
UCLA has a two week training program that is mostly done via Zoom, and standardizes contact tracing all across the state. We had lectures in the morning, then labs in the afternoon where we practiced interviewing and learned the skills and systems we’d need to be successful.
I really liked practicing interviewing — I enjoy acting, so pretending to be the interviewee was really fun for me. It also taught me how to best disseminate the information we want our interviewees to hear: how they need to isolate, wear masks, and social distance.
Also, we use the FEMA framework, and that was really interesting: to see how FEMA handles emergency situations. We did some job shadowing as well, to see how folks were doing this in the field.
The last piece of training was in-person at the Public Health building in Concord. Desks were 6 feet apart, and we all wore masks.
What’s it like now that you’re working at this full-time?
I work from home, which is ideal of course. There are 3-4 schedules you can work; mine is Sunday through Thursday, 8 am - 4:30 pm. During that period, we make calls that can last from 2-30 minutes.
How it works is that if there’s a confirmed case of COVID-19, a Case Investigator will call that person directly. They will ask the person to identify their potential contacts during the infectious period. Then Contact Tracers like me will follow up with those contacts, encourage them to get tested, then quarantine for fourteen days. This can help stop the spread if people follow the protocols.
Got it. So Brian, what has surprised you most about being a contact tracer?
So, most people are very friendly, but I got one interviewee that was really angry, because she’d gotten different, and inconsistent information from different sources. It makes sense, honestly, because we’ve got a lot of information flying around right now, and she was frustrated because she didn’t know what to do.
Something else that surprised me was how easy working with a translator was. We have a phone system where the interviewee can select the language they’d prefer, and it filters what I say to a translator to the interviewee, and what they say back through the translator to me. And it’s quick! I was honestly surprised at how fast it was. Plus, all the different languages available: Spanish, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Aramaic, and several others. It’s all just really cool.
That’s awesome! What would you say is the most difficult part?
For me, it’s that I really like to follow things through until the end. The problem with contact tracing is that you don’t get to find out how things worked out for the people you’ve interviewed. It’s hard for me to let go sometimes.
That being said, the most rewarding part is educating folks about the county resources available to them. I’ve helped connect people with food and rental assistance, and that feels really good.
That must feel really great, absolutely. One last thing: what would you, as a contact tracer, want people to know?
That we’re just trying to keep our community safe and get through this together. I think people are really worried when we call that they’re in trouble or something. Contact tracers aren’t law enforcement — we’re public health. It’s never punitive; we’re just trying to get you services you need.
And also, being part of a community means that you make sacrifices for the community, so please: wear a mask.
The risk to other people that you’ll get them sick vs. the small discomfort for you is out of proportion. Do your part to help keep our community safe.