Approved

Minutes from EssexCountyCancerCoalitionBuilding Meeting -

Joint Meeting with Essex CEED Coalition

Thursday, December 9, 2004

4-6pm

Location: The Priory @ St. JosephPlaza - 233 West Market Street, NewarkNJ07103

Participants: Mary Abernathy, Beatrice Black, Beverly Brevard, Merle Brown, Bill Bullock, Natasha Coleman, Joyce Cook, Diana DeCosimo, Lois Greene, Jung Kim, Peg Knight, Catherine Marcial, Sonia Pacheco, Natalie Pawlenko, Terri Pietsch, Daniel Rosenblum, Susan Sanna, Robert Schermer, Azadeh Tasslimi, Marielos Vega, Stanley Weiss

Introductions: Each participant provided a brief introduction and background on their relationship to the coalition.

Peg introduced Susan Sanna, who will be overseeing all 21 county coalitions throughout the state.

Official Registration

A form was distributed for all attending members to sign their name, title, organization/affiliation, address, phone number, and email

Update on CEED funding – Lois & Catherine:

Eligible populations for the NJCEED program are those who are uninsured or underinsured and whose incomes fall at or below 250% of the Federal Poverty Level

Women who are >40 and uninsured/underinsured who are diagnosed with breast or cervical cancer– Medicaid eligible if they meet Medicaid eligibility criteria, i.e. US citizen or resident status for 5 years.

Men diagnosed with prostate cancer are NOT eligible for Medicaid, nor are participants of either sex who are diagnosed with colorectal cancer eligivle for Medicaid.

Each countyCEED program received an increase in funds and therefore, the goal for the Essex County CEED Program for 2005, is to proportionally increase the number of people screened and educated on breast, cervical, colorectal, and prostate cancer.

Update on Barbershop Prostate Education Program - Lois:

Virgil Simmons – founder of Prostate Net and leader of initiative

Barbers in Newark participated in community health education sessions so they could then convey the message to men in their parlors about going to get prostate cancer screening. Offer brochures on prostate cancer education at their barbershops.

Distribution of Research-tested “Informed Decision Making” pamphlet on prostate cancer screening (NOT part of Barbershop Prostate Education Program):

Pamphlet can be downloaded from Cancer Control website (provides assembly instructions):

For summary statement, ratings of - age, gender, & cultural appropriateness; utility; dissemination capability; etc. - visit the Cancer Control Planet website at:

Update on Newark Cancer Initiative – Ms. Beverly Brevard, Director of Health Care Systems for the ACS

The ACS and the City of Newark have partnered and work closely with healthcare, business, government, and community leaders to eliminate the unequal burden of cancer of people living and working in Newark. They conducted their community needs assessment in the city of Newark.

The grassroots initiative is working to mobilize resources of government, medical, business, civic, and faith-based communities.

Subcommittees include: Leadership Council Steering Committee, Funding, Civic / Community / Communications, Faith-based, Healthcare (Patient Advocacy / Grassroots level), Corporate (Patient Advocacy / Grassroots level), Quality of Life, and Schools (newly added).

The message of the initiative is to increase screenings, reduce obesity, decrease tobacco use, and improve quality of life for all cancer patients.

Stan Weiss mentioned how the CountyCapacity and Needs Assessment (C/NA) Report might serve as a tool for the Newark Initiative

It was also announced that the Newark Initiative and the Essex County Cancer Coalition would work collaboratively, with Beverly serving as the liaison between the 2 coalitions.

There are overlaps as well as clear differences, namely that the Newark Initiative is restricted to the cityof Newark.

Also the committee/sub-committee structures of the 2 coalitions are different in that the CountyCoalition’s committees are more “goal-oriented” while the Newark Initiative’s sub-committees are “sector-related.” This difference in committee/sub-committee structure may provide opportunity for each coalition to complement the another.

Catherine raised the question of how the initiative would work to improve quality of life of people diagnosed with cancer, in a concrete manner.

Beverly and Natasha mentioned that the ACS has a goal in 2005 to put a strong emphasis on Patient Navigation for people diagnosed with cancer.

The ACS’s 1-800# will also direct people to the cancer support/education programs in their community.

Sharing of the CRDNJ with the ACS:

Stan brought up the fact that local cancer resources were collected by the Essex County Evaluators as a part of the C/NA. This cancer resource collection was part of a statewide effort in which all counties participated. All of the resources were compiled into a statewide database called the Cancer Resource Database of NJ (CRDNJ).

The database is about to be transferred to the ACS to be incorporated into their own database for the national call-in center for resources in NJ. Stan also announced Peg Knight’s Library and Education Initiatives at the County level. Soon, visitors to the OCCP website will be able to interactively click on a cancer-related health facility/resource (mammography facility, hospital, hospice, etc) in their county and obtain information about that facility (address, phone, website hotlink). At a recent CDC Site visit to the OCCP, there was a demonstration of this interactive mapping function.

Bill Bullock asked what cancer(s) would be the focus of the Newark Initiative. Beverly noted the ACS priority cancers: breast, prostate, colorectal, and lung.

Breakout session for EssexCounty Cancer Coalition committee groups to meet/organize

Azadeh Tasslimi read drafted objectives of each committee (Development, Education/Outreach, Advocacy), while sign-up sheets for each committee were distributed to the members.

Lois asked about a development goal regarding vehicles for fundraising i.e. using 501c3 status

Peg noted that the State has set up a pass-through agency specifically for the county coalitions to use – this partner organization will be the Institute for Medicine and Public Health

In hearing the draft goals of the Advocacy Committee, Peg cited Maryann Morrison as an invaluable resource for this committee- she is a paid lobbyist for the ACS at the state level

It was decided by all attending members that Outreach would become a sub-committee of the Education Committee

Members broke up into their respective committees and worked on editing/revising/adding to the draft goals/objectives and also decided on chair/co-chairs.

After the 30-minute breakout session, each chair updated the group on their discussion/new goals/etc.

Catherine, chair of Development, Mary Abernathy chair of Advocacy, and Marielos Vega, chair of Education gave updates on their respective Committee discussions.

Set dates for next meetings:

March 10, June 9, September 8, December 8

Each Committee should decide internally if they need to meet more often than quarterly

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