Barbara Jeffers
Barbara Jeffers is the Deputy Director and Community Health Services Manager at the Brazos County Health District in Bryan, Texas, where she provides strategic leadership across public health programs and supports the overall management and direction of district operations. In her role, she oversees key initiatives including immunizations and community health services, while also contributing to budgeting, policy implementation, regulatory compliance, and funding development. She is an active grant writer for the district and has been instrumental in securing more than $2.3 million in funding to strengthen public health services and expand access to care within the community.
Barbara brings more than 33 years of nursing experience across a wide range of healthcare settings. Her career began in San Diego, California, at the coroner’s office, where she worked in forensic services before transitioning into emergency care by obtaining her EMT and firefighter licenses. After relocating due to her husband’s military transfer, she entered nursing school in Florida and became an LPN in 1993. She later completed her RN education in Ohio and was recruited to Arizona to work in telemetry nursing. Throughout her career, she has served in home health, long-term care, hospital settings, and for the past eight years, public health.
Her academic advancement includes a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a Master of Science in Nursing Education from Grand Canyon University, completed in 2012. In addition to her professional leadership, Barbara recently earned her Human Rights Certification as a Human Rights Consultant from Washington, D.C. One of her most meaningful accomplishments has been developing a GED program for pregnant teenage girls who have dropped out of high school, providing them with academic support, counseling, and renewed hope for their future. Her career reflects a deep commitment to service, education, and improving health outcomes for vulnerable populations.
• EMT
• Firefighter License
• LPN
• RN
• Human Rights Consultant Certification
• Grand Canyon University - BS, Nursing
• Grand Canyon University - MSN
• American Public Health Association
• American Nursing Association
• Texas Nursing Association
• Human Rights Association of DC
• GED Program for Pregnant High School Dropout Teenage Girls with In-House Counseling
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to meeting a really good guy who changed my entire life. At the time, I was a homeless drug addict high school dropout with 3 children, and he accepted me as I was. He didn't drink, he didn't smoke, he didn't do drugs - he was just a really good guy. From the time we got married until he passed away 31 years later, he treated my 3 daughters as his own, and nobody could tell any different. His kindness and support made it possible for me to go from having a GED to earning my master's degree. Without his support, I couldn't have done any of it. Beyond that, I also attribute my success to the collaboration I have with my team members, because if it wasn't for them, I couldn't succeed.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've ever received is to be honest. Nurses make mistakes - they do. When I was teaching nursing, I told my students that the worst thing you can do is make a mistake and try to cover it up. Just admit your mistake, and then it can be fixed, and you can move on. The cover-up is the absolute worst. It's not only bad for the patient, but it's going to be on your brain for the rest of your life that you made that mistake and didn't tell anybody. So integrity and being honest are everything.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
My advice would be to pay attention to your instructors, pay attention to your patients, and pay attention to the women and men who are nurses that you're going to be doing clinicals with. They have knowledge, and they have been doing their position for some time before you came to them to do your clinicals. So pay attention to all those people around you, because you're going to learn a lot from them.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge in my field right now, in public health, is all of the federal cuts that are happening to grants. Just about everybody here at the Health District is on some sort of a grant, or partially on a grant. With the cuts, we're looking at possibly having to do a reduction in force at some time in the near future. We just need them to quit punishing public health - that's what we need. The good thing is that we do have support. I work at Brazos County Health District, and we have the support of both Bryan and College Station, as well as the county.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values most important to me are trust and respect among my team members, and how I treat them with trust and respect as well. It's not just how they treat me - it goes both ways. Honesty is also critical to me in everything I do.