Cervical Cancer Screening Project Team 

In Attendance:  Elisabeth Atherly, Benita Robinson, Makeisha Nesbitt, Erin Hedicam, Janet Yee,  Dai Vu, Heidi Martin, Roshan Paudel, Lisa Stevens (phone)

Benita and Elisabeth welcomed members to the meeting. Elisabeth provided an agenda to Lisa over the phone.

WCRC and Pap Project Intervention Status:

Benita informed that WCRC is closed.  They are doing a strategic plan is to see if they can reopen, possibly temporarily, but they are not promising if the staff will be rehired.  PWP funding is there to complete this project. By the end of this month, WCRC accountant will have the final dollar amount remaining.  Intervention is on hold. Planning for September and October, now that money seems to be available.

Heidi asked if the intervention schedule will be available for so she arrange food.

Janet informed the committee that she is asking for some dollars from Merck.  She has been in touch with Merck, keeping a financial partnership and other collaborations.

Updates on the church event in North Minneapolis:

Janet and Benita both were at the church event organized by Bev Proppes. Janet was impressed with the crowd. Heidi said participants were very engaged, with good questions and good comments.

Post-Intervention Survey:

Benita said people who have agreed to participate are Janet, Benita, Linda, Laura, Heidi, Marva and Elisabeth. Benita talked about the process of contacting women such as making three contact attempts and document them.  Erin will talk about the post-intervention survey, with the women who gave us permission to follow up.  The survey is similar to the post-intervention survey. Thus far, only have received one form, 3 vouchers. Janet asked whether the question about voucher is on the survey.  “Have you sent the voucher in?” Roshan said that the screening vouchers could be mailed out, if people been misplaced.

Janet wondered if we are not too intensive with the questions. Lisa asked about the time frame and Benita responded within two weeks.

Forms, evaluation and miscellaneous items: 

Lisa wondered if there are any electronic versions of forms, Lisa wants an electronic copy of the handouts. Makeisha asked if we are still going forth with the intervention as we are in the evaluation phase? Benita suggested that we will be concurrently going with the evaluation as well as implementation. Because funding was questionable due to WCRC situation, we will go ahead with interventions. We don’t want the congregations to wait as many have expressed interest in participating. Janet opined that we may have to decide on an optimal timeline to get back to the people.  Give them time, but not so long a time so that people forget. Elisabeth suggested that evaluation should be done within 3 months. Makeisha is concerned with evaluation as a group (to make course corrections if necessary).  She suggested having a process evaluation, OR, before going too far, having some evaluation. Benita suggested that she is bringing this to Gay.  She doesn’t have any problems with making the interventions go beyond October or November.

Dai asked whether Benita would be able to help? Benita suggested, even though she has been volunteering (and not officially working), she would be going to help.

The Logic Model

Lisa asked if we would be willing to go back to the Logic Model to evaluate the program? Makeisha suggested that she has the copies of all intake forms, will help with data. Elisabeth wants to have a phone conference in the next two weeks.

Janet:  It would be handy if we can get this e-mailed to them.  We can save them all—it’s a merge document, or whatever works.  September 13 is the deadline for completing the phone surveys.  On September 6, the evaluation group is planning to meet about the Logic Model etc.

The Communication Plan 

Roshan shared a draft of the communication plan with the committee. He provided information on why the communication plan, what we intend to do with it in the months to come. He requested the committee members to take a look and suggest changes and feed-back.

Janet wanted to know what do we want to do with these organizations that she has researched. Janet shared information about her preliminary calls with these national organizations including the Big Quilt project, the gynecological cancer foundation etc.   They have had preliminary discussion.  What is the goal? What do we need?

Makeisha asked what would we like to do regarding these organizations? Janet asked if there are other organizations that are working on similar projects?  Minneosta Ovarian Cancer Group etc. Email Janet with contacts from local organizations by the end of September. Heidi suggested categorizing these organizations as “clinical”, “community,” “advocacy,” etc.  Local organizations, what other local organizations can participate in the project? She suggested that Minnesota Women of Today as one possible organization.  What other organizations or other community types?  What’s our strategic plan? Heidi also provided information on the Yellow Umbrella Tour. The group also got a chance to watch Digene’s cervical cancer video.