End of year recap and news!

There were 12 amazing and inspiring community partnership projects completed by the Ann Richards Biomedical Students this year that we hope you have enjoyed reading about on our blog.  To recap:

• Team Flo: Mother’s Milk Bank of Austin…new volunteer training brochure for new facility
• Team Silex: Outreach and advocacy for African American mothers to accept donor breast milk in the NICU (in partnership with Mother’s Milk Bank)
• HAX: Diversity and engagement for Austin Prenatal Yoga
• Brainy Bunch: pregnancy specific yoga props for Austin Prenatal Yoga
• Sleeping Beauties: research on postnatal insomnia and use of yoga as a tool + creation of a meditation video to improve sleep quality for new mothers
• DualSpectrum: research related to advocacy partners for Texas Mother Friendly Worksite
• CYEN: creation and implementation of a worksite survey for a currently certified Mother Friendly Worksite
• Team GOAL: design of a user friendly resource website for mentors at Austin Pregnancy Resource Center (check out their site here!)
• Soshi: creation of a nutrition program with incentives for healthy eating for clients at the Austin Pregnancy Resource Center
• PokeMoms: development of an organization system for donations at Austin Pregnancy Resource Center
• MetaChicks: design and creation of an art advocacy quilt to encourage legislative  funding of maternal and perinatal health initiatives in Texas…donated to Postpartum Support International
• BeLieVE: advocacy for recognition and screening of adolescent mothers for perinatal mental health issues.

The last group on the list, BeLieVE, implemented their advocacy project at the Texas Maternal and Perinatal Mental Health Conference a few weeks ago (along with the MetaChicks quilt project).  BeLieVE created a simulation to demonstrate the reality of mental health issues and encourage providers to take teen mothers seriously.  The news media picked up on their story and we were featured on KXAN news in Austin.

All the groups did an amazing job this year.  I am so proud of them and think they ALL deserve to be on the news for what they have done to help central Texas mothers.

What will next year bring?  The rising sophomores are starting on their summer reading projects about biomedical research by delving deeply into Richard Harris’s new book Rigor Mortis.  We are very grateful to Mr. Harris for donating copies of this book to our school!

Great things are happening at Ann Richards.  Keep tuned to see how our girls will change the world.