239529 Case Study: The GEMS Program

Saturday, October 29, 2011: 2:30 PM

Quinn Gentry, MBA, PhD , Urban Health Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
The GEMS Program (Girls Empowered and Motivated to Succeed) serves as a unique case study for how black feminism is relevant in public health. Institute participants will be introduced to the GEMS Program as a one where black feminist theory was used as a guiding framework to develop the core elements and the educational modules. Specifically, GEMS is a self-esteem and self-empowerment program designed to help pre-adolescent and adolescent girls make better decisions about life and relationships. The GEMS Program is emerging as a best practice case study for understanding the significance of race, class, and gender, age, and place in selecting intellectual and practical paradigms for behavior change interventions. After completing the GEMS program, girls leave with a better sense of who they are and what they value about themselves, have more knowledge about sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, have better skills for interacting with their peers, particularly when faced with conflict, have a better understanding of the settings and situations that lead to poorer health outcomes, and strengthen their ability to develop and act upon personal goals that serve as protective factors. The GEMS program applies black feminist thought by incorporating its major themes into the curriculum and into other programmatic structures, including self-definition and self-valuation, race, class, and gender dynamics, unique experiences, controlling images, and structure and agency. For example, The GEMS program employs staff with backgrounds in women and girls social development and health disparities. In addition, the GEMS small group-level approach to HIV prevention intervention is used as a way to help girls become more comfortable “discussing” and “discovering” their own HIV risk and protective factors. Also, as the girls learn to trust and confide in staff with which they build rapport, girls move to a deeper level of risk reduction that is uniquely designed to address those issues that may be more private or embarrassing for adolescent girls to reveal in community or group settings. The GEMS program has educational sessions that address sexual risk factors at the individual, social, and structural levels. The institute participants will be engaged in how GEMS is a program that addresses the social determinants that place girls at greater risk for HIV and teen pregnancy. Institute participant will learn how the GEMS program integrates the “self-concept” and “the social context” into behavioral risk reduction lesson plans as follows:

THE GEMS PROGRAM CURRICULUM MODULES Standard Modules (1-6) 1. CAN YOU RELATE? 2. SELF ESTEEM AND SELF EMPOWERMENT 3. ANGER ISSUES AND SELF CONTROL 4. COMMUNICATIONS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION SKILLS 5. Healthy Relationships 6. EXPLORING MY HIV RISK AND PROTECTIVE FACTORS

Enhanced Modules (7-16) 7. TEEN PREGNANCY PREVENTION 8. SUBSTANCE ABUSE PREVENTION & INTERVENTION 9. HIV TESTING AND COUNSELING FOR GIRLS 10. RECOGNIZING AND REJECTING NEGATIVE MEDIA IMAGES 11. ADOLESCENT SEXUAL EXPLOITATION 12. ECONOMIC AND EDUCATIONAL GOAL SETTING 13. HEALTHY EATING AND LIVING (HEAL) 14. TECHNICALLY, ALL GIRLS ARE AT RISK 15. MAINTAINING A HEALTHY MENTAL STATE 16. VIOLENCE PREVENTION AND INTERVENTION

Learning Areas:
Diversity and culture
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Program planning
Social and behavioral sciences
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
Demonstrate the relevance of black feminist theory in public health interventions for women and girls of color

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am qualified to teach this institute because I have been advancing black feminism in public health since 2003 as my NIH-funded dissertation research provided a critical perspective on why black feminism should be a legitimate and mainstream framework in public health. My work resulted in a book published by Taylor and Francis titled, Rough Living: Black Women's Risk for HIV. In keeping with principles of black feminism to include diverse stakeholders in the knowledge gathering and sharing processes, I wrote, directed, and produced a play based on the clinical research findings from her book, called “Divine Intervention. In 2007, The CDC’s National HIV Prevention Conference presented “Divine Intervention” to diverse stakeholders in HIV. As a post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, my work on advancing black feminism in public health was presented at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health’s Annual Women’s Symposium. Finally, I have developed and implemented two practice-based public health interventions guided by black feminism.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Advancing Black Feminist Theory and Practice in Public Health
See more of: APHA-Learning Institute (APHA-LI)