Network July 2014 Update

The month started with preparation for the Tips From Former Smokers roll-out on August 7^th. The Network presented on three webinars with the CDC OSH media team about how to best collaborate and expand the reach of the new gay/HIV+ target ad (aka Brian ad). One webinar was for the state tobacco programs, another for the state HIV programs, and a third for the national tobacco partners.

We also issued a press release about the new HIV/Tobacco emphasis and pitched the story to a variety of media outlets. Twelve media partners covered the story, including GLAAD, LOGO and the Washington Blade.

Scout, Daniella and Michael Bare attended the annual Netroots Nations Conference; this is our major training event in online engagement strategies. The LGBT pre-conference is also a chance to relationship build with LGBT media. We learned many valuable lessons and built a working relationship with Upworthy staff.

Scout also attended the next Phoenix group meeting midmonth. The Phoenix group is a set of cross-cultural tobacco leaders looking to re-energize tobacco disparity work nationally. We are still developing a workplan.

Scout presented on a SAMHSA Webinar on the 16^thcalled “Walkthrough for The Foundations of Culturally Appropriate Integrated Services for LGBT Individuals”. The webinar had over 900 registrants and was hosted by our partner network for behavioral health.

After a recent budget approval for our consultant line items, we spent a lot of time this month working with consultants to put long-awaited projects into action. Stay tuned for the August roll-out of many exciting products and plans.

Jessica Halem, a past executive director of a lesbian cancer project and one of the new consultants hired, is spearheading 2 projects for us now. She will work with videographers to develop three professional videos documenting parts of our cultural competency trainings. She is also working with some community center leaders to develop a model wellness policy campaign we hope to roll out to all centers this Fall. If any center leaders would like to volunteer to be part of this campaign development, please contact CenterLink.

The Michigan LGBT centers who are spearheading the LGBT Wellness Needs Assessment continued to survey their local communities, coming in at the end of the month with 1,050 total surveys.

We provided technical assistance to facilitate the Center for Black Equity applying for a CDC wellness grant (REACH awards). Ultimately, they decided the proposal development was beyond their abilities now. One process result was they launched the Wellness needs assessment to their membership, and already have over 300 responses.

We chose to let our subcontract with Missouri lapse this month (to make sure we made our CDC budget target). But the local team from PROMO raced forward on getting policy changes in accordance with our technical assistance to them. They have secured LGBT policy changes in several hospital systems in the last few months, a historic level of short-term change. We expect to restart this subcontract by October at latest.

The Arkansas subcontract technically expired last month but we chose to extend our work with them since they had a lower than expected number of survey respondents.
We had unprecedented interaction with national media sources this month. Some resulted in stories, all resulted in good contacts for the future.
- USA Today interviewed Scout about a data story (quote cut);
- Staff also were interviewed (and had dinner with) a NYT reporter, but we asked to have our attributions removed since it was about politics.
- Bloomberg News used a quote in a story about a tobacco buyout (Tobacco Deal Gives Menthol Critics a New Soapbox …)
- Wallstreet Journal mentioned gay smoking in a subheadline (America’s Smokers: Still 40 Million Strong | Tobacco Companies Focus on Heavy Users Including Gays, Seek Growth in Menthol and E-Cigs).
- Late in the month Scout pitched the Washington Post to use National Adult Tobacco Survey data to followup on an existing story on LGB data. The pitch was successful and the resulting story mentioned our tobacco disparities. (Gay-rights groups dispute federal survey’s estimate of …)

Cancer Network Subcontract

July 10^th the National LGBT Cancer Network held a Webinar offering CenterLink members a new free resource: Online LGBT Cancer Survivor Support Groups. We worked to develop promotional materials to make adoption as easy as possible. So far three community centers have adopted the online support groups.

The Cancer Network continues to follow up with CenterLink members to see who wants to adopt another free resource: an online cancer screening program titled Take Care of That Body (TCTB). Like the support groups, we have customized promotion and outreach materials to make adoption easy. So far five centers have adopted TCTB.

The cancer Best and Promising Practices (BPP) planning continues to move forward. An advisory committee has been formed and we’re moving to having them meet in Las Vegas in conjunction with the CenterLink meeting.

The Cancer Network ED, Liz Margolies, had several published pieces this month, including: “The Psychosocial Needs of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender Patients With Cancer” in the Journal of Oncology Nursing, and a special issue of Women and Therapy Journal on Women and Cancer she edited. Liz also wrote 2 Huffington Post wellness articles titled “I Did It: I Wrote A Will,” and “I Did It: I Reached Menopause.”

The Cancer Network continued to attended conference calls for the California LGBT Cancer Task Force and offer technical assistance.

In July the Cancer Network’s staffer, Michael Bare, began to also consult directly for the Network for LGBT Health Equity to improve social media and work on research based products. Michael has also taken over the complete process for the weekly LGBT Wellness RoundUp for Huffington Post Gay Voices.