After eight hours of travel from New Orleans to Brighton, England, Iman Shervington, our Director of Media and Communications, and Petera Reine Diaban, our Sr. Social Marketing Manager, arrived at the 2022 World Social Marketing Conference (WSMC) this September. Iman and Petera attended the conference to share an innovative concept to strengthen the process of understanding the intended audience of a social marketing campaign. The duo infused the principles of Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology, into the formative evaluation process of audience segmentation. Find out more about the relationship between archetypes and social marketing by checking out the full article.

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Climate justice and reproductive justice have become existential battlegrounds that are defining physical, mental, and spiritual health, and collective wellbeing. According to the Seventh Generation Principle of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people, the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future. This ancient Principle is often applied to thinking about how to make conscious decisions about the use of natural resources, but I think this wisdom should extend to the ways that we value and care for people and relationships.

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This quarter we’re sharing takeaways from the article, “Adverse Childhood Experiences on Reproductive Plans and Adolescent Pregnancy in the Gulf Resilience on Women’s Health Cohort,” which shows that Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) influence family planning and potential adolescent pregnancies. We chose this article due to the historic moment we are living through in regards to reproductive rights and freedom, especially for women living in the American South, as we find it important to understand the circumstances, context and reality of folks’ lives to understand the decisions they may decide to make around their own health.

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Our Louisiana Youth for Health Justice (LYHJ) Council went to the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge in May, and we have been so excited to share more about this trip with you! If you're not familiar, the LYHJ Council is made up of passionate youth leaders from across the state who are learning to advocate for reproductive, social, and racial justice, and their visit to the state capitol was one way to help build their knowledge, experience, and skills so they can be more effective as they advocate for change. See more photos and read more about this trip and the LYHJ Council's goals here.

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Mary Okoth, LCSW, may be settling into her new role as the Collective for Healthy Communities (CHC) Program Manager, but she has always been weaving art, play, and nature into her role as a social worker since before she joined IWES. Luckily, there are many creative ways to incorporate into public health work, whether in therapeutic settings or out in the community. Learn why creativity and play are important tools to healing and how Mary and the social work team use them to serve their clients and the community.

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This year’s theme for National HIV Testing Day on June 27th was “HIV Testing is Self-Care,” which resonated with all of us here at IWES, where we emphasize the importance of taking care of one’s physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Learn more about how keeping up with your HIV status is a part of self-care, and find out about current HIV testing options, getting and staying on treatment, connection to support, and other ways that we're here to help you on your self-care journey.

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This past July, our Global Early Adolescent Study (GEAS) youth intern, Ekundayo Akinlana, had the incredible opportunity to represent New Orleans and the United States at the GEAS Global Youth Advisory Board Summit in Bali. He has worked with us in different capacities, including building his leadership skills and his research acumen, which culminated in him presenting work he did with other young people around the world. His representation and participation in the youth summit will help to shape the future of the GEAS study and its impact on youth worldwide. Read on to learn more about the GEAS Global Youth Advisory Board Summit and Dayo’s reflections.

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As a public health organization connected to the community, we know that often some of the most interesting journal articles can be hard to find and hard to decipher without a public health background. That’s why we are happy to introduce a new section of the newsletter to share insightful articles and important data that we see coming out in the field of public health. To kick us off this quarter, we’re highlighting this insightful article “Pathways To Equitable And Antiracist Maternal Mental Health Care: Insights for Black Women Stakeholders” published in October of 2021 in Health Affairs and written and researched by Kay Matthews, Isabel Morgan, Kelly Davis, Tracey Estriplet, Susan Perez, and longtime IWES collaborator and friend, Joia A. Crear Perry.

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Our Media & Communications team has kicked off the pre-production phase of a new short film and accompanying intervention aiming to prevent unwanted pregnancies and reduce the rates of STI transmission for youth involved in the justice system in the Greater New Orleans area. Through funding from the Policy & Research Group (PRG) and guidance from Sentient Research, over the last few months we've been conducting formative research to think through the topics, characters, motivations and themes that would best fit this Entertainment Education film. Read the full blog post to learn more about the process so far, how we're centering the voices of youth and adults involved with the juvenile justice system, and what to look out for in the future!

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Last month, the Puentes Para Invitados (PPI) team returned to New Mexico and Texas to continue to meet with community organizations and leaders united in serving migrant communities in the Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Deming, and El Paso areas. During this trip, our main focus was to continue interviewing and hearing from folks on all sides of the migration process to further our work on narrative change. Read to learn more about what we heard and discovered on our last visit to New Mexico, and learn about our upcoming FREE virtual event to explore opportunities to promote healing for providers and the migrant communities they serve.

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Does the built environment of neighborhoods impact the health and well-being of residents? Is there a relationship between the quality of a neighborhood’s built environment and the frequency of community violence? These are the overarching questions that the Healthy Neighborhoods Project (HNP) aims to answer with research-backed evidence. The HNP began in 2019 with the belief that all neighborhoods in New Orleans should be vibrant and healthy places to call home, and is investigating the impact that the physical environment has on resident and community well-being. Learn more about how we’re studying the impact that the physical environment has on residents’ mental health here in New Orleans.

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Since its inception, Media and Communications have played a pivotal role at IWES: like utilizing photography to bring programs, interventions and resources to life; devising social media strategies to share resources, knowledge and opportunities to the masses; and even creating these newsletters every quarter to keep you updated on what we’re doing and how you can get involved! At times, our Media & COMMS department has the opportunity to leave the every day work of general communications and focus in on specific programs, campaigns and initiatives. This year, one of the projects that we’re excited to share with you is the Mosaic Lab, an initiative of the MORE Project designed to elevate young men’s voices on the topics of gender, masculinity, and healthy relationships. Read on to learn more about this creative and unique campaign and how you can stay engaged with the work.

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The Maternal and Child Health (MCH) team is gearing up for the 2022 Louisiana Legislative Sessions! The impacts of local, state and federal policies are often broader and longer-lasting than we sometimes realize, so we’re excited to utilize our expertise in community-based research and our passion for community wellness to educate legislators and advocate for policies that provide better outcomes for our community—especially moms! As the organizational co-lead for the Louisiana Perinatal Mental Health Task Force, IWES hosted three task force meetings and several individual meetings to create a report that we will be releasing later this month with the goal of urging legislators to prioritize the mental health needs of birthing folk in Louisiana. Continue reading to learn about the amazing work our MCH team has been doing to create better legislation for mothers & birthing people and their families in Louisiana.

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As I look back at 2021, it’s hard to see past the continually compounding impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the unexpected devastation caused by Hurricane Ida. But despite all of the hardship, loss and grief that these two tragedies have forced us to endure, I also see a glimmer of hope and light as I reflect upon the resilience, passion, compassion and strength I witnessed from so many folks at IWES and beyond – so much so that we were able to find pockets of joy and stability on what felt like very turbulent skies and unstable ground. In this piece, I take a brief moment to reflect upon what we as an organization have learned this past year. Take a moment to read them, and reach out—comment or let us know what has meaning for you.

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Our local Health Resources & Service Administration (HRSA)/Black Women First Initiative - Improving Care and Treatment Coordination for Black women living with HIV (BWLWH) - has had a busy year! Find out what they’ve been up to all year here.

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Reflecting on this past year, the Research & Evaluation (R&E) team both rang in and ended 2021 navigating our ongoing Global Early Adolescent Study (GEAS) virtually. Find out more about the progress of this exciting initiative and everything else we’ve worked on in 2021 here.

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The constant changes in COVID-19 restrictions over the last year have created many barriers in our return to providing HIV and STI testing throughout New Orleans. Despite these challenges, through ingenuity, lots of hard work and the help of our spectacular community partners, we were able to safely carry out numerous testing events and provide much needed resources to our community. Find out how we pivoted this year and accomplished our goals here.

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Against the odds and seemingly endless uncertainty, 2021 has been a year of resilience and expansion for IWES’ Collective for Healthy Communities (CHC). CHC houses the portfolio that provides programming to enhance mental and physical health and emotional resiliency. With a year notorious for so much hardship, loss and grief, our CHC team was even more vital than ever on local, regional and even national levels. Find out more about how CHC showed up for the emotional and behavioral needs of our communities here.

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Our Adolescent Health portfolio has seen its share of flexibility during 2021! We’ve had to establish and maintain relationships with schools, community organizations and students, all in the midst of adjusting to COVID-19 protocols and the devastating impacts of Hurricane Ida, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. To see how we made these adjustments and not only met, yet exceeded our expectations, follow this link!

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