Funding Sources, Anyone??

We are now moving into the second phase of developing Every Woman Southeast. We have a small committee of volunteers from the region who are willing to offer their time to help develop funding proposals and find potential funders. If anyone out there would like to help or offer us ideas for funding, please do!

Having strong state consortiums is essential to this endeavor. So we hope to find a way to channel additional resources to these different groups in our region. Every Woman Southeast can then link the eight state consortia together to form a very large and powerful team.

Our next steps will include conference calls with our new leadership committee, talking with people about potential RFAs, and doing some outreach to the states to learn more about the status of their preconception consortium and their needs. We are also going to try to hold a webinar in July 2010 focused on consortium development.

Lots to do - we'd love to have your help!

Every Woman Southeast Action Steps

We are ready to move forward with our next steps in working together as a region to improve the health of women of childbearing age in the South. To make this happen we need YOUR help. First, if you are interested in learning more about the ideas shared during the March 2, 2010 meeting, you can access a complete summary of the notes at http://www.everywomannc.org/ - click on programs and plans. Or you can just link to it by clicking here. http://www.mombaby.org/index.php?c=3&s=10082

One activity that was universally endorsed was compiling and sharing information with each other about programs, campaigns, and products being developed and underway in our region. To that end we are putting the finishing touches on the first version of our Region IV Preconception Compendium. We acknowledge that this will be incomplete as there is much activity underway in the South. But it will be a good place to start. We hope to find interium funding to develop a more interactive database via a new website in the future.

Our next immediate action steps for the consortium are to a) develop a purpose statement and talking points and b) develop grant proposals and acquire funding for our next phase of work. As such we are seeking some good volunteers to help us move this forward. Both workgroups will be short term commitments. If you are interested in either area please email Sarah Verbiest at sarahv@med.unc.edu or call her at 919-843-7865.

Next steps for states include finding a home for their preconception health state team and then identifying leadership and reaching out to connect people in their state who are providing some kind of preconception / well woman outreach and services. If you are from Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina or Tennessee and would like to get involved, let Sarah know and she'll connect you. State teams have also commited to sending in additional information about preconception related activities in their states for the compendium mentioned above.

We also agreed that we will schedule a series of webinars - open to anyone in the southern region - that will feature the work of colleagues within the eight states. The first webinar will take place in June and will showcase our talking points and purpose as well as an update on national preconception activities that are of interest to the south. Two other webinars - possibly featuring work on folic acid and interconception health - will take place during the summer / early fall. These will be free - stay tuned for more details.

Our next posting will feature some ideas / tips about pulling together a preconception consortium. Please send us your thoughts and comments!

We did it!

Against some big odds, the Every Woman Southeast Consortium was launched on Tuesday March 2nd in Atlanta. Teams from each of the eight states made it there along with representatives from the March of Dimes, CDC, AMCHP, HRSA, ACOG and HHS. We even had a surprise visit from the esteemed Dr. Fleda Jackson. We had a total of 42 very smart and highly engaged people in attendance.

The participants worked hard all day as we went through introductions and state updates, a visioning exercise, discussion groups focused on horizontal integration, discussion groups about how to build the consortium, a presentation about the RNDMU Network (Region IV Network for Data Management and Utilization) and next steps. We ended the day with what we had hoped - clear actionable items and a consensus that we should move forward.

Interestingly, we met through a snow event - who would have thought we'd have snow in Atlanta in March! This caused some travel delays and worries but in the end I think everyone got home ok.

Notes from the meeting along with photos will be posted soon. Stay tuned! Thank you to everyone who took the time out of your busy schedules to participate. The Southern Region most certainly will lead the nation in preconception health.

Travel Teams

The travel teams are starting to come together although we still haven't heard from a number of states. Of those who have submitted names, we have been pleased to see that a diversity of agencies will be represented. States with a pre existing preconception health council or structure may be having an easier time putting their travel team together than other states. What do you think?

Our next call will be on Wednesday January 27th. I hope we get a good response.

PS We're up to 214 surveys - that's a lot but I know we're missing many people and projects.

Getting the Travel Teams Together

Mississippi has come in first among the states for putting their travel team in place. Have seven states to go with a January 22nd deadline. Here in North Carolina our Preconception Leadership Team has begun to talk about the composition of a team. We are challenged to look at our larger preconception stakeholders (over 200 people on our listserv) and think about the diversity of people we have involved. We definitely need to reach out to some additional regions of our state, to other groups doing wellness related activities and to some different industries such as health care plans. We're thinking that this regional initiative could provide some new synergy to help us get more groups involved.

As for the survey, we're up to 189 responses. Of those 47% are from Florida, 22% from North Carolina, and 13% from South Carolina. We definitely need to do more to get this survey out there - particularly in Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Blog readers - we'd appreciate your help with this one.

Our first conference call

We had our first conference call for the partnership on Wednesday afternoon. Over 50 people dialed in representing all 8 states! The people on the call asked great questions and offered significant help in promoting the survey and organizing state and travel teams. The energy was really positive. It is a big endeavor to take on but the call was reassuring that there are lots of people out there who like the idea of finding away for Southern sisters and brothers to work together on this issue. Next step…travel teams and information collection.

Let's Launch this Initiative!

Welcome to the Every Woman Southeast blog. Just as this new initiative is stretching many of us to think outside the box, jumping into the blogosphere is definitely a new horizon for some of us as well. There is much to be shared among the many partners who are signing on for this new journey. By learning from each other and working collaboratively, we hope to build a strong, diverse, focused effort, which will attract additional resources and opportunities.

Here is some more information about where we are starting.