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!

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!