Cervical Cancer Screening Project Team

In Attendance: Gay Lynn Richards, Benita Robinson, Dai Vu, Elisabeth Atherly,  Makeisha Nesbitt, Marva Bohen, Lisa Stephens (by phone), Heidi Martin, Janet Yee, Allison LaPointe (by phone), Megersa Kumbi.

1.                   Welcome/Introductions/Review of Make the Connection DVD movie:  Thank you to Heidi Martin for the photography

2.                   Announcements: 

·         Gay Lynn asked for a phone volunteer to help do phone follow-up.  Heidi Martin will do.

·         Gay Lynn is speaking on the Technical College campus in Staples, MN on Oct. 6, and will use all of her leftover Make the Connection bracelets at that event.

·         Heidi is doing an event in the near future for Abbott. The event will be held in a restaurant.  Work group members are invited to attend.  Dr. Randell will be the speaker. 

·         October 11 is the date of the Yellow Umbrella Tour.  Heidi can still obtain tickets for members who wish to attend.  Please let her know asap how many tickets you need.

·         Insight News has a community calendar which will be used for PWP events whenever they can get the information into it in a timely manner.  Heidi may also wish to use it for events.  Gay Lynn will send her the contact information.

·         Elisabeth Atherly mentioned that if we wanted to work with labor unions a good contact would be the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW).  Heidi noted that Digene has worked with this organization in the past.  Contact is through a web site:  www.cluw.org.  The vice president lives in Duluth.

·         Janet Yee has made contact with a regional accounts representative for Glaxo Smith Kline.  They may be interested in supporting our efforts.  Gay Lynn has had telephone contact and a meeting is planned for October 17.  Janet suggested that others be involved in that meeting.  One project might be the flip chart revision.  Digene is also looking at this, but we may need input from GSK specifically about the vaccine content of the flip chart.  Gay Lynn will provide and estimate to Heidi about what it would cost to produce 500 copies of the flip chart.

·         Elisabeth Atherly announced that MDH will be doing a training on Motivational Interviewing  for changing health behaviors.  The training is scheduled for the afternoon of November 8.  Work group members are eligible to attend this afternoon session.  Let her know of your interest.

3.                   Mid-Course Corrections:   

·         Elisabeth Atherly will be pulling together the evaluation team in mid-October.  They will look at objectives and bring back recommendations to the work group.  Refinements will be made based on what works and what doesn’t.

·         Jane Korn is making a loan to the PWP to allow continuation of work in spite of the closure of the Women’s Cancer Resource Center.  Heidi has volunteered to supply all the food.  The loan will be used to pay an honorarium for the lead interventionist, and the rental fee for use of the church.  Because of the funding the number of interventions was reduced from 15 to 12.

·         The MCA website has several offerings from PWP including testimonials from participants and Erin has been putting the data on the web site. 

·         Follow-up is being done by phone except for those women who did not agree to follow-up.  The women who did not agree will receive a letter from the Pastors’ Wives

4. 2007 Projects:  North Point will be doing a “See, Test and Treat” program again in April, 2007.  The physicians who did the August 19 program in North Minneapolis have also agreed that they would be willing to do a repeat program in April of 2007 in St. Paul.  There may be a way to connect the two events and also to try to develop a similar “See, Test and Treat” program for the St. Paul area.  It is more difficult in St. Paul because there is not a single clinic like North Point that serves the whole community, but we should pool our resources and contacts and begin to talk with a group of interested  providers and politicians.  Makeisha Nesbitt agreed to begin this process and Janet has offered her support.  Other members will send contact information to Makeisha and she will send out letters.  Makeisha anticipates that we will have a meeting of interested people by November.  Lisa volunteered to provide phone participation for up to 20 people if necessary. 
5. Other items:
   • It was suggested that we consider doing a project with older rural women that would focus on the churches.  Heidi Martin noted that this is one place that she know is an important social contact area for rural women. 
   • Janet suggested that we consider developing an award for groups like Stearn Manufacturing that have supported the education and screening of women employed by them.  This would be better as an MCA initiative recognizing businesses that support MCA objectives.
   • Makeisha suggested that we might also want to consider an award for “exemplary churches” in the Pastors’ Wives Project”
6. Next Meeting:  Gay Lynn proposed that we review tools for our next meeting and will get input from members who have not participated for a while.  We will also look at the North Point experience with See, Test and Treat to prepare us for a St. Paul Meeting

The next meeting will be held October 31 from 10:00 a.m. until 12:00 at Snelling Office Park.