Research & Evaluation Wraps Up the Year
It may not be surprising given the name of our organization, but this year our Research & Evaluation (R&E) Team has had a major focus on women and their families! This year has been incredibly busy and rewarding, and we’re excited to share some of our accomplishments with initiatives designed to address issues at the intersection of health equity and improving systems of care, individual health outcomes, and community-level wellbeing.
Film Learning Experience (FLEx) Study
The FLEx Study is an entertainment-education program designed to improve youth health outcomes by promoting positive decision-making, healthy relationships, and reduced risk-taking behaviors. This randomized controlled trial tests two media-based programs to help youth make healthier choices, and youth that enroll in the Study either watch a health-focused film alone or in a small group. Following the film they engage in a set of activities to help process what they watched and make connections to their health and that of their peers, and then they are asked a series of questions later on, at different intervals of time. Since we launched last September, the FLEx Study has evolved significantly, particularly in its recruitment strategies and partnerships. We’ve built strong collaborations with organizations across the country, including juvenile facilities, local community groups, and regional advocacy organizations. And I bet you were wondering what our reach was this year after all of our efforts? We are proud to announce that currently, FLEx has enrolled 88 participants from 24 states — a significant milestone that demonstrates our growing reach and impact.
Youth Advisory Council (YAC)
In order to advise our FLEx team on all aspects of the study and help promote it, we created a Youth Advisory Council (YAC). The YAC has been instrumental in getting the word out to their peers (and beyond!) and ensuring that youth voices remain central to our work. This year we were excited to work with our Media & Communications department to do a photo and video shoot with the YAC members so that we could update our website and create a youth-friendly FLEx landing page, and to create reels to reach even more youth on social media and encourage them to sign up. This year, we also redesigned the Council experience to make it more engaging and meaningful for the young people involved, providing them with opportunities to develop leadership skills and contribute to research that directly affects their peers.
Advocate-Initiated Response (AIR) program
The R&E Team has also been leading an evaluation of the Advocate-Initiated Response (AIR) program, a project by the New Orleans Family Justice Center (NOFJC) in partnership with the New Orleans Health Department. Established in 2022, AIR aims to increase community safety and disrupt cycles of violence by ensuring that survivors of domestic violence receive timely support. The way this works is that after law enforcement responds to an incident of intimate partner violence, NOFJC advocates reach out to the affected individuals to connect them with vital services and resources. To assist this process, our R&E team is assessing the effectiveness of AIR by using data provided by the program to determine if the program helps to decrease calls to 911, or if it decreases the severity of incidents. We also conducted a focus group with the AIR advocates to get their perspectives on the program.
FAMFirst Initiative
Another major highlight this year has been our collaboration with TrainingGrounds to document the creation of the FAMFirst Initiative (formerly the Perinatal, Parenting & Workforce Community Collaborative Initiative) and capture the voices and visions that shape it. This initiative has brought together leaders from the perinatal care, parenting, and workforce development sectors to create a coordinated system of support that adapts as families’ needs evolve. Working alongside our Communications team, we began collaborating with TrainingGrounds in the Winter of 2024 all the way through Spring of 2025, and throughout that time we attended sessions with the aforementioned leaders to observe — take notes, photos, and video — this unique and powerful group think through how best to work together to support youth and families. Following our observations we analyzed our notes for key themes and created a digital report detailing the process and highlighting the major takeaways, brought to life with images, videos, quotes, and stories from the design phase and participant experiences.
Internally, our team also celebrated some exciting milestones!
This year we welcomed a brand new team member, Kimberly Garb, who serves as a Research & Evaluation Coordinator. Kimberly’s contributions have already enhanced the quality and efficiency of our work and we are excited that she will continue with us into 2026. We also want to shout out Lydia Garrett-Metz, who was recently promoted to the role of Lead Research & Evaluation Coordinator, acknowledging her leadership and growing role in the FLEx Study!
As we look ahead to the new year,
we remain inspired by the progress we’ve made and grateful for the partnerships that make our work possible. The challenges of the past year have inspired new ideas from our team, and we have several intriguing ideas for new research projects, such as examining the effects of climate change on maternal health and studying factors that may influence where maternal healthcare providers practice. Make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter to see if we’re able to start researching any of these topics. We are also curious to see how the changes we’ve made to the FLEx Study — from revising our promotion strategies to revamping the YAC — will bolster the program in 2026! Lastly, next year we are really looking forward to providing our YAC members with the opportunity to learn about complex research studies and methods of engaging with their communities; we know these are topics they are eager to learn more about!