PHS Officers Celebrate Social Work Month
Photo: Jarryd Mushatt-Valrie
Capt. Jeasmine Aizvera, Lcdr. Nicole Pascua, Lt. Jamillah Bynum and Lt. Heather Light are Public Health Service social worker officers at NIH. Together, they have worked 58 years in the profession—celebrated each March—and 16 years as PHS officers.
Bynum provides addiction-related psychosocial support, resource development and discharge planning. She comes from a family of service members and worked for many years with veterans. Recently, she joined with officers to provide supplies and services to homeless veterans at the D.C. Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
Light helps chronically ill patients find solutions and advocate for their complex needs here and in their communities and serves as an instructor for graduate social work students. She also provides homeless shelter meals and pantry food supplies and works on outreach projects with her church.
Pascua leads the Clinical Center’s Office of Hospitality and Volunteer Services and the Edmond J. Safra Family Lodge. She oversees the CC hospitality team, patient library, messenger and patient escort service and hospital volunteer program.
She “finds it rewarding to meet individuals from the community who want to volunteer at NIH because they believe in the mission and value towards medical science.”
Aizvera oversees quality measures and performance improvement as manager in the social work department. She supervises a team of clinical social workers and has a clinical assignment of her own in pediatric behavioral health.
The officers are sometimes asked to step beyond Bldg. 10 and deploy to emergencies. Aizvera has deployed 6 times, including after 3 hurricanes, and to Native American reservations during behavioral health crises. The four officers are part of the 680,000 social workers nationally who celebrated their profession in March.