WELLNESS COUNCIL MINUTES

August 13, 2004

9:30-11:30

Present: Loretta Jones, Chair Ruthie Gray

Delores Hill Lottie Perkins

Pat Barnes Martina Travis

Katy Minnium Kavita Patel

Pluscedia Williams Chris Palma

Nissa Madyun Keisha Paxton

Antonia Cadena Barry Collins

Paul Koegal Marcus Drew

Kamau Williams Kimberly West

Roland Holmes Moraya Moini

Chrys Terry Kathleen Daly

Moses Chadwick Youlim Choi, Website Designer

Jin Son, Website Designer Sarah Starks, Scribe

Andrea Jones, minutes

• Welcome/Introductions: We had several new people on the bus, including Chris Palma from the California Nutrition Network, Antonia Cadena from UCLA, and Moses Chadwick from South LA Family Services. We also had two visitors, Jin Son and Youlim Choi. They are the website designers and were here to show us what they’ve done so far on the website. Welcome aboard!

• Web-Based: Jin Son and Youlim Choi gave a presentation on the Witness4Wellness Website. Everyone received a packet consisting of the pages on the website. They are: the Website page. The Welcome page, with separate pages on our Partnerships, our History, a Project Summary, Research Information, and a Library page. There are also pages on the Support Council, and each one of the Working Groups: Talking, Building, and Supporting. There are links to people connected to HAAF II. On the Library page there are publications and forms that can be downloaded. Each page has places where the user can click on to other things that interest them.

• Website Questions: Is it possible to put Request for Support Forms on the Website? Can people register for conferences on the Website? The answer to these questions is yes, but there was some discussion about whether or not it should be done that way. Dr. Holmes felt it was better to do this on paper the way we’ve been doing it, thus leaving a paper trail. In addition, he noted that systems could crash or go down. Chrys Terry disagreed. She said doing things like this over the website would be more time-effective, because people who live in Compton or the Valley, etc., would not have to come into the office to pick up or drop off their paperwork. The papers could be printed out and transmitted in a manner of seconds. They could be saved in the send file, their own files, etc., so crashing would not be a worry. The forms would not be in pdf. form so there should be no problem downloading. When a form is submitted, we could have a quick confirm feature so the person sending it would know it was received.

• Calendar: Should we have a link to the calendar? The calendar link would go to Yahoo!. There would actually be two calendars—one for the general public and one for us. The calendars would need to be kept synchronized. This would not be easy, but using a cut & paste method would make it easier. All of our meetings (except the Evaluation and the Executive Committees are already open to the public, anyway, because of the Brown Act. (We get public funding, so we have public meetings.) Our public website calendar will have things like: Save this date!, and ongoing meetings for that month. We want people to see that we have things going on that they can participate in. We would have to keep the calendar current so that people will hit it consistently. If the photos go up, people will log on just to see if their picture is there or if their community is represented. Researchers will log on just to see what’s going on. We will have poetry, too. We want people to say, “Let’s go to this website. They have things going on!” They could call HAAF to get more information. We will be able to count how many people actually go to the website.

• Name Change: A motion was made and voted on to change the name of the Support Council to the Wellness Council. The vote was unanimous in favor of the change, so henceforth, this body will be known as the Wellness Council.

• Support Council and Working Group Pages: There will be information on the people (names, pictures, agencies, their role in the project) that are on the Wellness Council. These will be brief and flexible. It is not required to have your information (picture, name, etc) on the website, but we will be using conference photos, so your picture may show up anyway. These will be group pictures. The Working Groups will have input as to what is on their pages. For example, Talking Wellness will be able to click on the Spoken Word, or Community Pictures. There will be monthly maintenance (to keep the website current), but revision (actually changing something) will not be easy. There was a question about changing the “research” to “evaluation” because “people would not go to something called “research”. The other choice: “Research and Evaluation”. Question: Can the curser be made into a bus? Youlim said yes.

• The Photo Voice Project: This matter was brought before the Council to inform them of the Photo Voice Project and also to get approval. The Photo Voice Project originated with the Talking Wellness Working Group. Victoria Vesna, a photographer from UCLA, Ken Wells, and Ed Corbett had a meeting with some members of the community. The people who came to that meeting became the Talking Wellness Sub-Committee. The general idea of the project is for the members of the sub-committee to take pictures of things in their environment (no people) that depress them. Dr. Vesna would take the pictures to UCLA and make them into some form of artwork. The Supporting Wellness Working Group got involved because Kavita Patel and Bowen Chung had some ideas for fundraising, i.e., grants the project might be eligible for. Another reason was because one of the Supporting Wellness Working Group Action Items was to talk to Community leaders to let them know what we want. The question is: Is this a joint project of the Talking Wellness and Supporting Wellness Working Groups? Or is it a Talking Wellness Project with the Supporting Wellness Working Group doing just that, supporting them? This issue will be taken to the Talking Wellness Working Group at their next meeting. There was also a discussion about whether the Talking Wellness Working Group had received support from the other working groups in the past. (The other working groups had not necessarily agreed with their approach to getting people to talk about depression.) There was a lot of discussion on the photos: the purpose, who was taking them, how they would be used and the possibility of misuse, the audience for the photos, interpretation, would there be narration or text with the photos, would the photos just show the bad part of the community, etc. (At this time, approximately 7-9 people have cameras.) Tanika Spates said we’d be fine if we tell the photographers to take pictures in equal measure, good and bad. Chrys Terry felt that we should not get into all this now. “This is an artistic project with research ramifications. This is their community; let them show their community.” Paul Koegal agreed: “The time to worry about this is not now.” Moraya Moini said, “If it promotes debate, good. Everyone has a different point of view.” The Bottom Line: Can this project get the Council’s support? It will not leave the Community without their footprints or without Research and Academia. Decision: You can support and not agree. The Photo Voice project has not received IRB approval yet.

• Proposal: Moraya Moini proposed that at future meetings of the Wellness Council, we have short, summary updates on what each Working Group is doing, with time allotted for this on the agenda.

• Next Meeting: The next meeting will be on September 10, 2004.