Mark Your Calendars for our Next Webinar

We are really excited about our upcoming webinar on February 9, 2012 from 12-1:30 est. This webinar will focus on the Life Course Theory. This theory is a conceptual framework that helps explain health and disease patterns - particularly health disparities - across populations and over time. It points to social, economic and environmental factors as underlying causes of persistent inequalities in health. This theory is grounded in social determinants and social equity models and is also a community or "place based" approach. While the concept is innovative and for most public health professionals somewhat intuitive, the application in practice is a lot more complex.

In other words, while many of us may be interested in changing the way we approach our work in maternal and child health, there are not many existing models and programs to refer to as best practice for how to actually make it happen! This means that we need to be the change agents to begin to build these new models. But first, it is helpful to make sure we understand the concept and have guidance as to how some programs have made this happen.

Both of our speakers are national experts on the life course model. Our first speaker is from Florida and will provide us with an overview of this model and some resources and examples for application. Our second speaker is not from the South but is leading a very successful and growing MOVEMENT in New York City to reframe his entire perinatal partnership to be in line with the life course theory.

We hope you will register and then join us in a few weeks. To register click here https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/402200873

Postpartum Visit Webinar is Almost Here

We are looking forward to our next Every Woman Southeast webinar which will focus on the postpartum visit - an important opportunity for interconception care. It seems that this is another topic of great interest in the Southeast - we have over 370 people registered! While we like to feature home grown programs, we're reaching over to the West Coast to learn from Dr. Jeanne Conry, MD, PhD who has provided leadership to work in California where our innovative colleagues have reconsidered and improved the postpartum visit.

Why is this visit important? For many women, this may be one of their last encounters with a health care professional - for their own care - for a long time. While Health Care Reform has the potential to provide ongoing access to health coverage for all women, our current system of care leaves low income mothers without coverage once they are about 6 weeks postpartum. In our region over 12% of new mothers find themselves pregnant again within 6 months of giving birth. The risk of preterm birth increases with short birth intervals.

Interested? Please join us for the webinar on October 13th from 12-1:30 EST. You can register on our website. We will post the slides in case you miss it. You can also start a conversation on this topic - add a comment to our blog!

WISH Webinar Series is a Wrap

The Women's Integrated Systems for Health Webinar series concluded with two excellent presentations on policy and advocacy. The slides and suggested links and resources from each of the webinars are posted on our website - under initiatives. We're still working on getting up a few of the recorded presentations but encourage you to check them out now. The WISH program also just recorded and posted an overview presentation about the initiative and the training opportunities that will continue to be available. Next steps for WISH? Six online study modules coming January 2012.

Learn about HRSA's New Bright Futures for Women's Health Initiative

On April 6th Sabrina Matoff-Stepp and Anna Kindermann from the Office of Women's Health at HRSA will share information on the new Bright Futures for Women's Health Initiative. This presentation is part of our Women's Integrated Systems for Health (WISH) webinar series. The presentation will be recorded and available for viewing a few days after the webinar.

The first webinar in the series went very well. The slides and speaker bio are posted on our website. Free access to the archived webinar will be available shortly. Dr. Melzter-Brody made many key points about the critical and overlapping issues that impact women of reproductive age, particularly those who are pregnant, postpartum and new mothers.

Why does all of this matter? As the preconception movement grows into the women's health initiative that it is meant to be, we all need to think about weaving our different work and projects together to meet the needs of the whole woman.

Is your project doing this? Tell us how!

Interconception Webinar is a Hit

We still can't believe that we had almost 300 people listen in to our webinar last week on Interconception Health for High-Risk moms. The response to this topic and to the webinar series has been wonderful. Clearly there is a significant interest in sharing ideas and practices in providing services and support to this important and under-served population.

If you missed the webinar, you can see all the slides on the EveryWoman Southeast website. Feel free to email or call the speakers directly if you have questions about their presentations. We'd also love to hear from you if you've been working with these moms. Please email Sarah at sarahv@med.unc.edu.

A special shout out to our wonderful speakers - especially Juanita Graham from Mississippi who called in while snowed in at home with her power set to go out. Now that is dedication!

We're currently working with the NC Institute for Public Health and the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health to launch a free 6 part series that focuses on integrative community approaches to optimizing mental and physical health among adolescents and women of reproductive age. The Women's Integrated Systems of Health (WISH) project has information about their work and the series on our website. Just click on Initiatives and then WISH.

In the meantime, don't forget to register for the 3rd National Summit on Preconception Health and sign up for our listserv.

Webinar on November 4th

Every Woman Southeast will be hosting our first webinar on November 4th, 2010 from 12-1:30pm EST. We have a great line up of speakers who will present a wide variety of options for groups to consider in organizing themselves to promote women's wellness / preconception health. This information is relevant to groups interested in organizing at a state level as well as those trying to organize at a more local level. One of the biggest opportunities that the preconception health movement offers is the chance to bridge gaps and form new partnerships to work together toward some common goals. Of course this is MUCH easier said than done. The webinar offers the opportunity to hear how three states, one national organization and our Every Woman Southeast Initiative have approached this challenge.

Interested in joining us? Please do - you can register by going to our website. The box in the bottom right corner of our site will take you to information about the speakers, their slides and the login link. At this point we don't know if we can archive the webinar. We'd like to but aren't sure just yet if it is technically and financially feasible. We also are not offering CEUs for this webinar although we will investigate doing so for future webinars.

We owe a BIG thank you to the March of Dimes for working with us to host the webinar - couldn't do it without them. As of Friday at 1pm we have over 125 participants registered...with hopefully more to follow.

Sign up and join us!