KANSAS CITY, Mo — The Kansas City, Missouri, Health Department has appointed Dr. Marvia Jones as its newest director. Dr. Jones currently oversees violence prevention and community education around COVID-19 mitigation efforts for the city and will be replacing Rex Archer, who retired in August after 23 years.
Dr. Jones has been working in public health for 15 years with a deep focus in finding solutions for community violence. Before working in Kansas City, she worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where she evaluated the effectiveness of prevention tools and provided recommendations in health practices.
She believes public health and violence prevention go hand in hand. She wants to take a holistic approach to the well-being of Kansas Citians, and she said that starts with a focus on mental health and looking at the root causes of violence.
Dr. Jones claims causes of violence are often environmental — what people are taught or what people grow up seeing. But, much of it is deeply rooted in history as well.
“I am happy to bring ideas and knowledge and awareness of the long history of things that have impacted the health in not just our community, but communities across the nation,” Jones said.
Jones is the first African American woman in Kansas City to step into this role at the health department. Local organizations fighting for safer neighborhoods say they feel like they are in good hands.
“People will quickly understand whether you can relate to what they are going through. They’ll pick up quickly by your demeanor, by how you treat them, by what you say to them,” Randall Hundley, who sits on the board of Healing Pathway Victim Service Agency, said. “You don’t have to be taught from the beginning. You know it exists, you know how it happens, you’ve experienced it, you’ve seen it, you’re educated on it."
Hundley is a former Deputy Chief of the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department. He wants to see officers and the health department work together on solving violence. Dr. Jones sees the value in this.
“Around this type of building, this level of things are in the environment that increases the risk of violence — I think that data is really helpful to us because it can drive a lot of the programming,” Jones said.
Jones also believes better communication with the public is key to finding effective solutions.
“Free of jargon, free of complex language,” Jones said. “Sometimes we can be so focused on pushing information out and telling people what we recommend that we don’t necessarily hear what comes back to us. So I really want to focus on that.”
Annette Lantz-Simmons, who works at Center for Conflict Resolution, said better communication leads to better education. She said people need to be taught how to deal with conflict.
“It’s same with violence — what you’re exposed to sometimes, life choices or what you are modeled, feeds into what you do with conflict,” Lantz-Simmons said.
Dr. Jones’ top priority during her first week on the job is going to be lifting employee morale. She said she will focus on finding solutions to worker retention as well as providing higher pay. She will assume her new duties on Feb. 14.
