Taking on the Life Course Model

For the past few weeks the Every Woman Southeast Coalition's leadership team has been working to finalize its goals, logic model and action plan. As we've thought deeply about what needs to happen in the Southeast to truly improve the health of mothers and babies, we agree that change will only come when we take on the hard issues. These include the social determinants of health, policy issues that impact our communities, leadership development, and racism. That's enough to make your head swim!

But doing the business the way we always have doesn't cut it - especially in these difficult times. The Life Course Model is a new paradigm in the field of maternal and child health that has the potential to change our practice. This model offers a new way of looking at health, not as disconnected stages (infancy, latency, adolescence, childbearing years, menopause and beyond) unrelated to each other, but as an integrated continuum. This perspective suggests that a complex interplay of biological, behavioral, psychological, social and environmental factors contribute to health outcomes across the course of a person's life (thank you to Drs Pies, Kotelchuck, Lu and Ms Parthasarathy for the quote).

We want to figure out how to put this model into practice - here at home. Want to learn more? Check out the MCH Lifecourse Toolkit website from CityMatCH. They have excellent resources! We'll be posting our plan just as soon as its done - we'll be sure to let you know!

Alabama Adventure

Thank you to Team Alabama for inviting me to talk about the Every Woman Southeast Coalition at their annual Perinatal Symposium in Birmingham last week. While thunderstorms kept me in the Charlotte, NC airport longer than I liked, the weather in Alabama was beautiful! At the Symposium, I was honored to follow a fantastic presentation from Rose Horton, President-Elect of AWOHNN. The presentation was the first I've given about EWSE since we decided to push our boundaries and commit to addressing health inequities and the social determinants of health. I think it went over pretty well. The slides are posted on our website.

I also got a glimpse at Albama's fantastic preconception health campaign called GALS - Get a Healthy Life. Here is a link for more information http//www.adph.org/familyplanning. Seriously - a public education campaign that features shoes - fun and great information.

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.

Thank you March of Dimes

This summer we hope to spend some time talking with partners across our 8 states to learn more about what they're doing for preconception health. We also want to hear more about their interests in our Initiative and what we can do to help and support their work. We also want to continue to keep our website current and promote our Facebook page and blog. You have shared both with your friends - right?!

We were really happy that the National Office of the March of Dimes agreed to support our work by providing us with a small grant. With these funds we will work with graduate student extraordinaire - Rebecca Sink - to place calls, talk with people and increase our momentum and the information we have on our website. We're also working on a logic model and grant proposals. So much for the lazy days of summer!

Interested in telling us about your work and ideas? Don't wait! Post your thoughts and ideas.

National Summit a Success!

Just back from the 3rd National Summit on Preconception Health. It was a very packed agenda with alot of great ideas and connections. I most enjoyed having a chance to see our Every Woman Southeast partners from across the eight states in person. We had an excellent breakfast meeting where we mapped out a number of next steps for partnership building, the webinar and topices we could work on together. We'll post the slides from our presentation and the project overview we developed to our website. All of the presentations and video recorded plenary sessions will be linked to the beforeandbeyond website in a week or so. Thoughts? Ideas? Share them with us!

EveryWoman Southeast Takes on the Preconception Summit!

It is hard to believe but the 3rd National Preconception Health Summit starts this Sunday June 12th in Tampa, Florida! People attending the Summit can learn more about Every Woman Southeast and meet members of the leadership team in a number of ways. First, we'll have a booth outside the opening session on Sunday night...and we have fun things to give away! Come get a tote bag or mousepad. On Monday morning June 13th we'll be gathering in the breakfast area to brainstorm ideas for next steps for our work. On Tuesday June 14th we will be presenting about our Initiative in session P3 at 10:45am. All of the presentations from the Summit will be posted online. We'll be sure to let you all know how it goes. Hope to see many of you there!

Are You Registered?

The 3rd National Preconception Health Summit is just around the corner. The agenda and registration information are posted at http://www.beforeandbeyond.org/. Check it out! I know times are tight, but the registration fee is only $175 and the current room rates are only $92. The Summit begins officially Sunday evening June 12th and finishes up at the end of the day on June 14th. In addition to excellent plenary sessions, the Summit includes alot of work sessions and many networking opportunities. Every Woman Southeast will have a display booth and will be part of a break out session panel.

I attended the 2nd National Preconception Summit in California a few years ago. I came home with a lot of new ideas. I was also impressed at the energy around the importance of working with policies, the environment, local communities, health care providers and public health leaders to support women of reproductive age in being as healthy as they can be and in planning and reaching for their goals in life. I hope to see you at the Summit in June!