Hello PMH Community!

We hope everyone is having a good start to the summer! Today’s newsletter encourages your involvement in the DC Perinatal Mental Health Task Force efforts underway this summer and shares many educational opportunities coming up this summer and into the fall!

The DC Department of Healthcare Finance is leading the efforts for the DC PMH task force and a few Mary’s Center staff have been appointed as members, alongside community members, healthcare professionals, doulas, home visitors, etc. The next couple of months is your opportunity to weigh in on the issues and ideas that will shape the PMH Task Force report! Your voice, personal lived experience, and expertise are needed as the Task Force seeks to draft recommendations during the next few months that will shape the future of perinatal mental health care in our city. Here are the different ways you can engage:

1. If you have an issue or idea you’d like to recommend to the Task Force, we urge you to complete the recommendation submission form and share your feedback and suggestion with the DHCF
2. Take 5 – 10 minutes to complete two surveys for the Public Awareness & System Capacity Building Subcommittee. Task Force member and Subcommittee chair Crystal Jackson of A Queen Momma Doula Services created these surveys to generate feedback and ideas for this work. Complete the two surveys pt 1 & pt 2 to share feedback on the current perinatal health landscape in DC by Friday, July 21st.
3. Take 1 – 2 hours and attend a Perinatal Mental Health Task Force or subcommittee meeting! Here is the full calendar of upcoming meetings which are all held virtually. The Task Force meetings are 3:30 – 5:30 pm on the last Tuesday of every month. To register for a subcommittee, click here.
4. Take two minutes to forward this email along to friends, colleagues, clients, and neighbors who have lived experience with perinatal mental health and/or are providing perinatal health care in Washington, DC. Encourage their engagement in forwarding along to their networks and participating in the actions!

We so appreciate your work with the perinatal population in our region and NEED YOUR VOICE to inform these task force efforts! GET INVOLVED and speak your truth today!

Mary’s Center Perinatal Mental Health Task Force Appointees

Andrea Agalloco, MSW, LICSW, Perinatal Mental Health Program Manager

Nandi Barton, Family Support Worker

Kelia Olughu, Perinatal & Family Health Program Manager

Our next Perinatal Mental Health ECHO Call is Monday July 24^th at 11 am. Dr. Aimee Danielson, Founder and Director of the Women's Mental Health Program at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital will present about the Mother-Baby IOP that Medstar plans to launch in DC and will offer space for our ECHO attendees to provide feedback, ideas, and input. Please sign up for our ECHO list to receive the Zoom link for this important discussion! 

As always, we continue to seek presenters for the monthly ECHO call – including sharing about programs, modalities or for case consultation with the group. Please reach out to Andrea Agalloco at aagalloco@maryscenter.org if you’d like to present.

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY to the Maternal Mental Health Hotline

The hotline has officially been in operation for over a year, reaching that milestone on Mother’s Day 2023. In its first year of operation, nearly 12,000 people during the perinatal period were served. Of note, the hotline recently announced a new number 1-833-TLC-MAMA so please adjust any materials you are sharing with your patients and clients. As a reminder, the Hotline is available 24/7 and provides free, confidential support, resources, and referrals to the perinatal population and their families. Counselors speak both English and Spanish and can access interpreters for other languages. 

Read more about the Hotline's first year.

Initiatives from Postpartum Support International’s PERINATAL MENTAL HEALTH ALLIANCE FOR PEOPLE OF COLOR

Coloring the Conversation

Mark your calendars for July 27th at 2 PM EST | 1 PM CST | 11 AM PST for Coloring the Conversation on Perinatal Mental Health with Alliance Director Andrea Clark-Horton.

Join live on YouTube, Facebook, or LinkedIn, or watch the replay.

Tejiendo Encuentros

Save the date for July 20th for the next live event with Alliance Spanish and Cultural Manager Xochitl Carlos-Mendez, who will be joined by Martha Arotingo a midwife from Ecuador who will share ancestral traditions and practices. 

Join them every 3rd Thursday live on YouTube, Facebook, or LinkedIn, or watch the replay.

Upcoming Webinars, Training, and Conferences (virtual and/or local):

The Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health has announced a Congressional Briefing: The Latest Regarding Family Planning Access and Maternal Health on July 12, 2023, from 10:30 am to 11:45 am PT.

The briefing will educate Congress on the following:

• The latest policies on family planning, including access to contraception
• The impact of unintended pregnancy on women, families, and society, including economic mobility
• Recent research on the impact of unintended pregnancy (lack of family planning and lack of access to contraception) and maternal mental health
• Innovative technology on LARCs for men
• Policy recommendations to improve access to reproductive healthcare and maternal mental health
• Family planning counseling, including clarity on who can and should deliver this
• Access to contraception, including coverage of FDA Approved Plan A, male contraception



Register Here →

MMHLA Webinar Series starts in August



This series of four one-hour webinars is tailored for healthcare professionals, birth workers, policy makers, advocates and anyone looking to support efforts to improve perinatal mental health care. Topics to include: Birth Trauma and Maternal Mental Health, Pregnancy, Disability, and Maternal Mental Health, Pregnancy, Infant Loss, and Maternal Mental Health and Military Families and Maternal Mental Health. Each presentation will include research as well as lived experience to fully illustrate the topic.

Sign up here for the webinar series

Also from MMHLA, in case you missed it, – Pride month may be over but the mental health and medical care needs of the LGBTQ+ community are ongoing. Check out this resource list collated by MMHLA to support your work!

National Maternal Health Innovation Symposium

August 2-3 | Minneapolis, MN

August 9-10 | Virtual

Learn More

Marcé of North America (MONA) 2023 Conference, Emerging From the Pandemic: Equity and Innovation in Perinatal Mental Health

October 25-28 | Alexandria, VA

Learn More

Local Resources

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