Three county employees were recognized with the A. Heath Onthank Award for Merit, the highest honor awarded by the county to its employees, at the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, June 27. The award recognizes accomplishments of outstanding worth in advancing and improving public service in Fairfax County Government and Fairfax County Public Schools.

Alisa Brooks
Demonstrating outstanding leadership and initiative, Brooks assisted in the coordination of the Care to Share Program and developed the Care to Share Toolkit dually addressing food waste in schools and childhood food insecurities in Fairfax County. Since its development, food rescue programs have expanded to schools across the county, with PTAs, students, school staff, parents, school nurses and school clubs all getting involved. As a result, hundreds of pounds of food are being redistributed to those in need, making a positive impact on the health of food-insecure individuals in our community.

Gillian Ethridge
To help with a staffing crisis, Ethridge stepped up to supervise and train new 911 call takers receiving on-the-job training during a newly formed training shift covering the busiest hours of the day. The shift’s purpose was to train recruits quickly and increase staffing during busy call times. Ethridge reviewed all daily observation reports and mentored trainees on proper documentation and best practices. She coordinated ride-alongs with field responders to help trainees understand their role and developed games to promote teamwork and camaraderie. The new training shift was successful, resulting in quicker call-answering times and training completion. With new call takers being released from training faster, workloads were normalized and mandatory overtime for call takers and dispatchers was reduced.

Nathalie Washington
Through exceptional collaboration with epidemiology, nonprofits, and the Office to Prevent and End Homelessness, Washington created a more efficient COVID-19 screening and isolation protocol and monkeypox evaluation process for the Homeless Health Program. She led a team of nurse practitioners to provide 1,075 medical care visits, addressing over 1,500 critical health conditions and appropriately referring more than 1,300 individuals to higher levels of care and subspecialty evaluations. Through her dedication and direction, 132 vaccine clinics were successfully organized in locations including shelters and the streets, providing high quality, highly needed care in this vulnerable population.

The A. Heath Onthank Award was established by the Board of Supervisors in 1966 to honor the memory of Colonel A. Heath Onthank (U.S.A. Ret.), the first Chairman of the Fairfax County Civil Service Commission (1957-1962) and guiding force of the county’s career merit system.