Be a Bridge to Safety

By Kathy Hodges - Co-Executive Director, Family Violence & Rape Crisis Services

Violence in relationships is a reality for far too many women in our community, especially young women.  The CDC estimates that at least one in every 3 women will be the victim of violence in a relationship at some point, and our history at our agency suggests that for many women violent relationships often start in their teens and twenties. This violence often impacts all aspects of a woman’s life and makes it difficult for her to seek health care, find support from her family and friends, or to support herself and her children financially.  Her partner may not only control where she goes and who she talks to, but may limit her access to contraception and coerce her into unwanted sexual activities.

Women who are being abused by their partners often carry around shame and guilt for their violence.  They are isolated from community supports, and feel they have nowhere to turn.  Our communities must be prepared to recognize violence and provide support for victims in order to turn around this epidemic of violence.  We all must know the signs:

• Injuries that don’t match the explanation or recurrent injuries 
• Fear or anxiety about a partner’s response to a situation
• Reluctance to participate in activities without a partner’s permission 
• Withdrawal from family, friends and social situations 

Each of us can be the bridge a woman needs to safety in her life. We can help her to change her situation. The first step is to listen to her and believe her.  She may never have been able to share this before, so she may need to talk for a while.  It is important to let her know that you believe her.  If anything, she is likely minimizing the violence she has experienced.  It is every bit as difficult as she is telling you.  The next step is to connect her with supportive services.  Your local domestic violence agency is a powerful resource and ally for her.  Help her get in touch with the agency by sitting with her and helping her with the contact.  Finally, she needs you to keep the door open and help break the isolation she is experiencing.  She may not be ready to leave.  She may not be ready to do anything.  Just by talking to her and listening to her, your support can help her start to see her way to safety - the first step on her path.

Femme 6 - Aiming for Collective Impact

By Mallory Perez – Health Policy & Management Graduate Student

Femme 6 is a student group of Health Policy & Management majors at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. For the Spring 2014 semester, this team of six young women is assisting Every Women Southeast as the coalition grows and expands its network of resources. Mallory Perez from Tampa, FL is a member of Femme 6.

Nowadays, the word “collaboration” gets thrown around a great deal, whether it is a new music record or a team at work focusing on an upcoming project. I recently read an article that made me think critically about why some collaborations work and why others fall flat. “Collective Impact” by Kania and Kramer in the Stanford Social Innovation Review mentions comprehensiveness and risk-taking as part of what makes collective impact successful. The evidence of the effectiveness of cross-sector partnerships is building…slowly. So, what makes engagement in collective impact so difficult? Don’t we all want positive social change?

The five conditions of collective success described in the article are as follows: common agenda, shared measurement systems, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and backbone support organizations. Establishing all of these elements across various organizations in multiple social sectors can magnify the impact of an initiative and generate large-scale change. Beyond the difficulties of obtaining funding, this type of work requires a change in mindset, one that fully promotes equity. I have learned that collective impact works best when each member has “skin in the game”. No one person pushes to be the sole champion of change. Rather, collective impact is more of a process, and less of who can claim the outcome. The opportunity to learn from the expertise and perspectives of others is invaluable. That opportunity is where we grow, where we bring about change.

Every Woman Southeast is working to apply the collective impact model to women’s health and preconception health. The health sector is rapidly evolving, and it is becoming increasingly clearer that “good health” extends far beyond medical care. Public health, entertainment, advertising, education, and politics are just some of the players that influence our choices, and subsequently our health. At present, Every Woman Southeast seeks to engage partners that will help impact policy decisions and the housing/transportation available to women. Both of these factors contribute to how much autonomy and control women have over their own health. As Every Woman Southeast continues to build more cross-sector relationships, more individuals will discover the ways in which they can participate in collective impact.

The Scoop from AMCHP from a First Time Attendee

By Angela Aina - CDC PHPS Fellow and First Time Attendee of the AMCHP Conference - January 2014

As a first time attendee of the AMCHP conference in Washington, DC, it was great to hear and learn from national leaders in the field of maternal and child health. The keynote speeches from the plenary sessions were very motivating. I most especially loved the speech given by Dr. Maxine Hayes, MD, MPH, with the Washington State Department of Health, when she accepted the Vince Hutchins Leadership Award. As an early career public health professional, learning about initiatives, programs, and strategies that have a focus in health equity is very important to me. Therefore, it was refreshing and affirming to hear the charge of Dr. Hayes, in which she stressed the importance of reducing health disparities by truly addressing the social determinants of health in MCH work. Additionally, it was truly inspiring to have had the opportunity to be among the first the view an episode from a soon-to-be ground-breaking documentary, the Raising of America: Early Childhood and the Future of Our Nation from California Newsreel.


Since I’m new to the EveryWoman Southeast Coalition, it was great to meet some of our regional and national partners. I had the fortunate opportunity to listen to the EWSE Pilot Projects' presentations, which was a valuable learning experience. Hearing about how some of the pilot projects incorporated reproductive life planning and preconception health messages into their health promotion programs and the lessons learned was very insightful. Listening to the accomplishments of the PASO’s radio project in South Carolina and the Reproductive Life Planning project with CHOICES in Memphis, Tennessee, helped to shape my understanding of the impact and reach of the initiatives developed through the EWSE Coalition. It is clear that EWSE is an important initiative for women’s health and health services in the south region of the U.S., especially during these times of reduced funding and increasing health burdens. It was very encouraging to see that the conference provided a space for young MCH and public health professional to link with national and regional leaders. The AMCHP conference is definitely value-added to my professional development, more importantly, in the area of networking and leveraging resources. Of note, it was awesome to see my supervisor, Sarah Verbiest in action as she used the conference as an opportunity to connect with existing partners and gain new partners and resources for the coalition. I am very grateful to have her and Erin McClain as a mentor! Thank you both and the staff at AMCHP for the experience!

Connecting Webinars to Action Steps in Louisiana

Blog Post by Caroline Brazeel from Louisiana

Every Woman Southeast is having an incredibly positive impact on my personal and professional life through its meaningful webinars and support from my colleagues in other states. It’s the fact that we are a regional organization of local people that makes us uniquely poised to impact change. Here’s one example of how EWSE pops into my life at random and opportune moments:

I spent some of the last moments of 2013 talking about Jamila Batts and Dr. Kimberlle Wyche-Etheridge’s October EWSE webinar. After a great NYE dinner, one of the guests, an architect, began describing his most recent work project – a redesign of some of New Orleans’ public schools. In an effort to design a building that met the needs of the students, parents, teachers and school board, he had immersed himself in the lives of the people that flowed into and out of the school. He found old pictures of the building’s façade from the early twentieth century and attended community meetings where neighbors voiced concerns and parents expressed their hopes for the new building. He took that information and thoughtfully proposed options to the school board for adapting the existing structure to meet the current and future needs of those who use it.

His process of reaching into archives for an explanation of how the school became what it is today evoked Dr. Wyche-Etheridge’s work on the Nashville CityMatCH Racial Healing project. When I told him about how they worked in Nashville to map the history of one neighborhood’s development, he couldn’t wait to get home and look it up on the EWSE site. To him, the Nashville project was a combination of his interest in urban planning, architecture, and social justice. To me, his work was a window into how the physical infrastructure for school health and wellness is shaped. At work, I don’t spend any time talking to architects, but our conversation made me realize I needed to reexamine my definition of non-traditional partners.

I’m not sure I would have seen the connection between architecture, education and public health as clearly had I not heard Dr. Wyche-Etheridge and Ms. Batts speak about their work in Tennessee. What I know for sure is we have to ask the right questions of the right people to know how to go about doing our work differently. In 2014, I’m hoping to work on the expansion of my definition of non-traditional partners, and I know my EWSE colleagues will help guide me in that pursuit.

Caroline works at the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals in the Office of Public Health. She is a member of the EWSE Leadership Team.

Jessica Hardy is Leading the Way in Alabama

Happy New Year Everyone!

Jessica Hardy is a very active and engaged member of the EWSE leadership team. She is a registered nurse, with an advanced degree in public health from the University of Alabama, Birmingham (UAB). She has served more than nineteen years with the Alabama Department of Public Health in various capacities, including the Alabama Women’s Health Liaison for the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services and for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Jessica was appointed to serve as the first Director for the Alabama Office of Women’s Health (OWH) in 2002 (a position she continues to hold), and was appointed as Acting Director of Alabama’s office of Minority Health from 2009 to 2012. In addition to her work and volunteering with EWSE, Jessica is currently a doctoral candidate in the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program at Troy University, in Alabama. We asked Jessica about the health problem she cares the most about as well as about the favorite part of her work and her favorite book. Here are her responses!

Infant mortality is a concern not only for Alabama but for the nation as a whole. In Alabama the infant mortality rate is higher than the national average and is compounded with a very daunting disparate rate between the white and black infant mortality rate. It has been said that the infant mortality rate reflects the health of a community; in Alabama this is one of our top women's health issues today. What I love most about my current responsibilities is the outreach into the community. My work allows me to advocate for health in general, and preventive health programs in particular. Communities are very receptive to shared health information. I enjoy serving as liaison between public health and the communities across our state. One of my favorite books is by Christine Northrop, Women's Bodies Women's Wisdom. I have found that women in the community can often relate to the information Dr. Northrop shares in her books, and it opens the door for me to introduce additional resources to the women in communities across Alabama.

From the Field: Health Care Law's Positive Impact on Women

Making Change Happen in Florida

  Leah Barber-Heinz is the CEO of Florida CHAIN

Lost in all of the political wrangling over the Affordable Care Act is the fact that Florida’s women, an astounding 1.4 million of whom are uninsured, will see a huge positive impact thanks to these reforms.

The new law creates significant cost savings by eliminating annual and lifetime limits on how much insurance companies cover if women get sick, as well as prohibiting insurers from dropping women from coverage when they fall ill. Moreover, plans in the new health exchanges place a cap on how much insurance companies can force women to pay in co-pays and deductibles. Starting in 2014 women who cannot afford quality health insurance will be provided tax credits, and the Act will completely close the donut hole for prescription drugs by 2020.

The law also provides more and better health care options and ensures coverage of basic health services including maternity benefits. Maternity benefits are often not provided in health plans offered through the individual insurance market.

Also of particular relevance to women is the fact that the new law already prohibits insurance companies from denying children coverage based on preexisting conditions. Moving forward, it will prohibit insurance companies from denying any woman coverage because of a pre-existing condition, excluding coverage of that condition, or charging more because of health status or gender. Right now, a healthy 22-year-old woman can be charged premiums 150 percent higher than a 22-year-old man.

The Affordable Care Act also aims to crack down on excessive insurance overhead by limiting how much insurance companies spend on nonmedical costs such as executive salaries and marketing. And insurance carriers must justify their premium increases in order to remain eligible for the health exchanges.  

The positive impact these reforms will have on Florida’s women and their families cannot be overstated. A recent report by Families USA found that more than 70 percent of consumers in the individual market will be eligible for financial assistance through the Marketplaces, because they either qualify for tax credits that will make their coverage more affordable or for Medicaid.

As a result of these and other important reforms included in the Affordable Care Act, fewer Florida women will delay needed care or be forced to give up basic necessities in order to get the health care they need.