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Stretching Existing Resources
State agencies often have an Office of Communications that handles press
releases and coordinates media relations. Such offices typically offer a
myriad of
other services to their internal and external customers.
The one word of caution when working with state agency's communication
office is to negotiate a date of project completion as the office may be
assisting a variety of other programs with competing priorities. We worked
closely with our Office of Communications to format and publish the
Women's Health Annual Reports,
Women's Health Data Report 2006 [pdf; 1.90mb],
and several promotional items including a
women's health booklet
[pdf; 3.52kb] and
promotional strategies
[pdf; 1.40mb] for National Women's Health Week, Women's
Health Month, and the Governor's Conferences on Women's Health.
Internships for students in university programs, such as nursing or public
health, presented a great opportunity for students as well as for staff.
Over the past two years, we have mentored three bright, energetic, and
enthusiastic Master in Public Health interns from the local university. This
partnership was so successful that one of the interns was hired to work on
women's health issues after her graduation.
You can find almost unlimited free resources on the Web. It takes time to
surf the Web and discover all of the available resources so we have a few
tips and shortcuts. You can order many materials in bulk for free or only a
nominal charge from the
National Women's Health Information Center. It was
helpful to subscribe to
electronic newsletters
[pdf; 10.6kb] that periodically send
"briefs" on your topics of interest. These free services usually are a
valuable source of timely information about cutting-edge literature,
training opportunities, and conferences. Another suggestion is to develop a
close relationship with your
State Women's Health Coordinator. That person
has two additional resources at her disposal: direct contact with the
Regional Women's Health Coordinator and the list serve of State and
Territory Women's Health Coordinators. Other
Women's Health Resources
[pdf; 10.6kb] have
been posted on the department's website.
Create a Presence
In Florida, the passage of women's health legislation along with the receipt
of the HRSA women's health grant and a great deal of local interest
coalesced to help create a "women's health presence".
A Thousand Words
Florida's first Officer of Women's Health Strategy, heeded the old adage, "a
picture is worth a thousand words" and enlisted the support of computer
savvy staff to help create a
montage of women's health.
[pdf; 276mb] First, the
Officer of Women's Health Strategy "interviewed" program staff and key
members of the Legislative Women's Caucus, took their photos, and then she
extracted quotes from individual interviews for the montage.
Three questions were asked:
- What does a healthy woman look like?
- What does women's health mean to you?
- What one critical message would you give to a young girl regarding
women's health?
Interviewer's pictures and quotes as well as important facts about
women's health were set to music in a power point presentation. Staff
developed a bulleted list of women's health facts which was also
incorporated into the presentation. We played the montage as a non-stop
looped video at a
Women's Health and History celebration
[pdf; 66.4kb] and at other
state and national meetings where staff presented about Florida's Women's
Health activities.
Another engaging way of creating a picture with women's health was the
"Colors of Women's Health",
[pdf; 27.8kb] a fashion show held at the first Governor's
Conference on Women's Health. Each model donned outfits with specific color
schemes, providing an opportunity for the audience to learn about various
women's health issues signified by specific colors. Moreover, this
innovative activity provided numerous collaboration opportunities. The
models for the show were members of the Intra-Agency and Interagency Women's
Health Committees and their daughters or mothers and spanned the age, race,
and body-size continuums. The fashion show also created the opportunity to
develop a new partnership with the retail sector.
Audio Teleconferences
Another public awareness strategy that was helpful in creating a women's
health presence was our statewide audio-teleconference series; Best
Practices in Women's Health. These quarterly conference calls are free and
open to the public. The goal of the series is to promote integrated women's
health services. On average, 100 -150 people participate in these hour-long
audio-conferences. A list of topics of these calls is as follows:
- Overview of Best Practices
- Government, Academic, and Private Sector Approaches to Integrating
Women's Health
- Women's Health Week Promotion - National, State, and Local Level
- Showcase of Women's Health Wellness Programs - Private Sector
- Promising Practices Addressing Health Needs of Incarcerated Women
(HIV/AIDS prevention, sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse and
domestic violence)
- Showcase of Three Local Healthy Weight Initiatives supported by
CityMatCH and the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs.
- Oral Health Needs Across the Lifespan
- Cervical Health -Overview by Florida Department of Health, and a
Showcase of Two Demonstration Projects, and Wakulla County Health
Department
National Women's Health Week
National Women's Health Week offers a natural platform for
highlighting women's health locally and our awareness strategies
cover a continuum of required financial and staff commitments -- ideas that
are viable for women's health programs in resource-poor and booming
communities alike. We found this national observance to be a powerful
stimulus for pilot testing innovative health promotion strategies,
particularly since our
regional Office on Women's Health provides
mini-grants to promote National Women's Health Week. One activity that is
free and does not require much staff coordination is to initiate a mayoral
or Governor's proclamation
[pdf; 59.3kb] for National Women's Health Week. Another
economical strategy that requires some staff coordination is to organize a
wellness walk at work. This is an easy way to generate interest in women's
health in your community. You can also step it up a notch and complete the
challenge by promoting a little friendly competition between work units. In
2007, we did this and called it the
Battle of Bureaus.
[pdf; 259 kb] On the other
end of the cost spectrum is an event that can create a women's health
presence in itself -- a
Governor's Conference on Women's Health. This
undertaking requires significant staff and financial resources but it gives
quite a bang for the buck in creating a presence.
Extend Your Reach
Once a presence was established, it quickly gained momentum. Policy leaders,
community partners, and staff were energized and interested in helping. Part
of this assistance came in the form of gaining legislative authority to
spend non-recurring federal funds for women's health activities. This
funding was used to broaden the scope and set in motion plans for a
Second Governor's Conference on Women's Health, a Statewide Women's
Health Plan, and 16 demonstration project grants for breast cancer
education.
Governor's Annual Conference on Women's Health
The Second Governor's Conference on Women's Health provided a venue
for discussing the major health and health care delivery issues affecting
women in Florida. Over the course of two days, approximately 300 people
participated in eight plenary sessions and 26 seminars focused on
maintaining a healthy balance between work and family, community
collaboration for advancing women's health, business approaches to women's
health in the workplace, best clinical practices for women's health care,
women's health and health care disparities, and emerging research that
addresses women's gender-specific needs. In addition, a town hall meeting
offered an open forum for members of the local community and conference
participants to voice their concerns about what they perceive to be the most
pressing issues in women's health. By bringing together and fostering
multidisciplinary collaboration among many different stakeholders in women's
health, this conference offered many opportunities to broaden both the reach
and the efforts to improve women's health in Florida.
Statewide Plan on Women's Health
Another strategy for extending the reach of women's health was to engage
approximately 100 individuals with expertise in women's health programs,
policy and research, health consumers and advocates, state and federal
agency partners, and leaders from community and professional organizations
in a strategic planning process to develop Florida's first Statewide Plan on
Women's Health. The Officer of Women's Health Strategy presided over the
working meeting that the Interagency Committee on Women's Health, Strategic
Planning Subcommittee helped organize. The strategic planning meeting
provided participants with the most current information on the status of
women's health in Florida. The agenda laid the groundwork for the
development of a Statewide Women's Health Plan (which is still being
developed) and the development of
recommendations
[pdf; 16.1kb] for priorities in
women's health.
Breast Cancer Education Demonstration Projects
Dedicating funding for new, community-based breast cancer education provided
press release
[pdf; 21.5kb] opportunities, which were very effective as a
promotional strategy. The Department of Health awarded
16 grants [pdf;
28.6kb]to
community-based organizations for innovative demonstration projects that
hold promise for improving breast cancer awareness, availability of
mammography services, and coordination of breast cancer treatment services.
These projects concentrated the educational efforts on women ages 40-49
and/or racial and ethnic minorities affected disproportionately by breast
cancer.
Demonstration Projects for Integrating Women's Health Care
The federal Integrated Comprehensive Women's Health Services grant
[pdf; 18.2kb]was another mechanism to extend the reach of the various women's health
initiatives into local communities by:
With funding from the
Health Resources and Services Administration, the
Department of Health funded
ten community demonstration projects
[pdf; 16.9kb] that hold
promise for improving local delivery of integrated women's health care. We
awarded the following county health departments $10,000 each through a
competitive process: Brevard, Citrus, Duval, Hernando, Jefferson/Madison,
Lake, Pasco, Pinellas, Seminole, and Sumter. These projects ranged from
providing direct dental, health screening, and reproductive health services
to developing community resource directories and educating the public about
such topics as preconception health, prematurity and infant mortality. The
counties were very successful in their efforts to provide awareness,
education, and direct services, as well as increasing provider knowledge.
National Audio Teleconferences
The Best Practices in Women's Health Audio Conference Series
[pdf; 15.8kb] exceeded
expectations regarding numbers of participants. We envisioned these
conference calls as a means of reaching county health department and Healthy
Start Coalition audiences statewide, but almost immediately word of the free
audio conference series spread through the Florida Public Health Association
membership network and their respective organizations. Representatives from
the public, private, and academic sectors requested access to and
information about these convenient and accessible training opportunities. To
contain costs, we encouraged participants to share phone lines and to use
these audio conferences as opportunities to convene groups of staff and
partner agencies together, thus adding value and impact by stimulating
dialogue around the various topics. Sending a courtesy copy announcement
about the audio conference series to the
federal funding agency
project director and
Regional Women's Health Coordinator triggered a
second wave of outreach, further extending the audience. Thanks to the ease
of electronic dissemination, several national organizations widely
distributed the information with their memberships, and as a result, there
was strong, out-of-state participation.
Women's Health Month
Other opportunities for extending our reach came from
statutorily
mandated activities [pdf; 10.7kb] which acted to further advance the momentum around
women's health. Among other duties, our state legislation directs the
Officer of Women's Health Strategy to organize statewide Women's Health
Month activities. Even though the National Observance of Women's Health is
only a week, our statute mandated that we organize statewide Women's Health
Month activities. Accordingly, the governor issued a
Proclamation
[pdf; 59.9kb] declaring May Women's Health Month. During that time promotional items,
[pdf; 77kb]
including a
women's health booklet [pdf; 3.52mb] and press release
[pdf; 12.7kb] were
disseminated statewide through county health departments and Healthy Start
coalitions. A series of activities celebrating women's health throughout the
month [pdf;
118kb] were promoted as well; with the largest event being the
Governor's Conference on Women's Health.
Networking
Florida conducted a variety of networking strategies to highlight women's
health issues, including participation on state, regional, and national
conference calls; program promotional efforts through newsletters and
presentations at meetings and conferences; and outreach to advocacy groups,
such as the All Women's Coalition, Hispanic American Coalition, Healthy
Start coalitions, and the Legislative Black Caucus.
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