Dr. Butterfoss is a Professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) and founding director and current board member of the Consortium for Infant & Child Health (CINCH) and the Project Immunize Virginia (PIV). She holds a PhD in health promotion and education from the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. Her textbook, Coalitions and Partnerships in Community Health, is fast becoming a best seller for academics and practitioners alike.

What you will learn:  Coalitions and partnerships bring people together, expand resources and focus on problems of community concern better than any single group or agency. To maximize coalition success, this pre-conference workshop for members of health coalitions and the public health community will provide research-based methods for successfully sustaining and growing these organizations.  The workshop will offer recommendations and resources for effective practice, as well as success stories from actual coalitions. 

If you would like to register to attend the pre-conference session only and/or the full conference, go to www.ilmaternal.org/ncihc2010.html for further information. 

Amy A. Pisani, MS, is a leading authority in pediatric health advocacy.  Pisani is the Executive Director of Every Child by Two, an advocacy group dedicated to ensure the immunization of all of America's children by the age of two.  She leads the group in legislative education, building alliances, and educating the public through various media mediums. 

Beyond the field of immunizations, Pisani is a board member at The Center for Women’s Health and has been active in the Advisory Committee on Breastfeeding Practices and the Tobacco Free Kids Youth Action Network.  Pisani received her Masters of Science from Gallaudet University for the Deaf, Washington, DC, and her baccalaureate degree in Psychology from Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. 

What you will learn:  Effectively communicating science-based medical information to the media is key to getting your messages heard and understood by the general public. This two-part workshop will provide coalition members with practical tips on how to engage both traditional and social media as part of an overall communication plan.

• Part 1: Led by Every Child By Two (ECBT) and Senior Management from APCO Worldwide, the first half of this session will discuss practical strategies on preparing for and conducting media outreach and will train participants on how to become effective spokespeople. The workshop will include message training, media relation tools and role-playing/mock interviews.
  
  
• Part 2: The second part of this workshop will be Social Media 101. Participants will learn how to utilize social media and the Internet to promote health messages and will learn which online forums/tools are best to reach their target audiences. The session will describe different types of social media and Web tools (e.g., Facebook/Social Networking Sites, Twitter, Blogs, Google Key Words, etc.) and teach participants how to use each one. Workshop attendees are strongly encouraged to bring laptops as this will be an interactive program.