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Kendra Birnley, RN, MA, MEd, PhDc

Lead RN for Transition Services Program
Multnomah County Health Dept, Corrections Health
Portland, Oregon

Kendra Birnley, RN, MA, MEd, PhDc is the Lead RN for the Transition Services Program, which is part of the Corrections Health Division for the Multnomah County Health Department. In this role, she leads a team of 15 nurses who provide MOUD, harm reduction and overdose response education, and complex care planning for people releasing from jail. After spending over 10 years teaching English and Women’s Studies in higher education, Kendra changed career paths and became a Registered Nurse. She got her license in 2019 and pursued work immediately as a community health nurse at the county jail. She cares deeply about providing compassionate care for people who are system-involved. Kendra will also complete her Nursing PhD at Oregon Health & Science University this June. Her dissertation research involves a critical discourse analysis of nurses as they discuss incarceration and prison abolition in a focus group setting. She believes that nurses can and should contribute meaningfully to the abolition movement since it ultimately seeks improvements in public health systems. Her career goal is to eventually work on policy that enables and achieves decarceration.

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