Raise Your Voice Blog | Nicole Clark Consulting

7 Jun, 2012

What Makes Your Family a Strong Family?

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T17:48:43-04:00June 7th, 2012|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: activism, birth justice|0 Comments

This week, I’ve been in Oakland, California. This is my second trip out to California in less than 3 months, and I love having any excuse to make it over to the West Coast (or the Left Coast, as some of my friends like to call it.)

Along with having a mini-vacation, I traveled to Oakland to participate in the 2012 Strong Families Summit, hosted by Forward Together. Strong Families is a 10-year national initiative to change how people feel and think about families, and how lawmakers can develop more policy that is reflective of the fact that many families do not fit the stereotypical image of the nuclear family. Attending the Summit gave me an even better understanding of what Strong Families represents.

The Summit brought in over 130 individuals (representing themselves, their families, communities, and organizations) to collaborate, engage, and build more around the core principles of Strong Families: building alignment and synergy based on the work organizations and communities are already doing and leveraging the unique strengths of this work, cultivating valued-based relationships that build foundation and capacity building, and expanding opportunities and resources to move beyond their community and organizational needs in order to work collaboratively.

There was so much rich information, tools, and conversations I received at the Strong Families Summit. Here are some of the highlights:

Policy Priorities and Analysis

Strong Families is expanding the definition of “family” by generating a cultural shift towards broad public support for policies on the local, state, and national level that support more families that have the least amount of resources and are the most under attack, including low-income families, immigrant families, LGBTQI families, single parent families, young parents, and families of color. There were several strategy sessions, including “Building Momentum for Strong Families Policies”. We were given two awesome tools: Policy Priorities and Policy Analysis. We were able to choose which area we wanted to focused on–LGBTQI, reproductive justice, Indigenous, immigrant rights, environmental justice, criminalization of families, safety nets/budgets, youth–and discuss what we feel should be priorities for policy makers.

Policy Priorities

The following questions gave us the opportunity to generate conversation:

1) The policy, administrative rule or budget line item we are trying to pass or stop is:_________________________________

2) The decision-maker(s) for this policy, administrative rule or budget line item is/are:_____________________________

I intentionally came to the Summit to focus more on youth, so here’s an example:

The policy, administrative rule or budget line item we are trying to pass or stop is: We are trying to pass federal and state comprehensive sex education for young people.

The decision-maker(s) for this policy, administrative rule or budget line item is/are: United States Congress. Congress continues to allocate million in federal funds for abstinence-only-until marriage programs. (more…)

30 May, 2012

Lifting Up & Supporting Teen Mothers

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T17:48:05-04:00May 30th, 2012|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: Birth Equity, reproductive justice|0 Comments

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May is Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month, and while organizations, programs, and governmental entities are spending millions of dollars and much of their time trying to prevent teenage pregnancy, young people who are already pregnant and have chosen to carry to term continue to experience stigma. Many young mothers, especially young moms of color, can face increasing difficult societal problems such as poverty, lack of educational opportunities, unequal access to quality health care, age discrimination, and lack of support for their new role as mothers.

Is becoming a parent as an adult easier than becoming a parent as a teenager? Well…I’m sure we have all think of at least one adult who became a parent as an adult, yet who are just as incapable of taking care of a human life as we make young parents out to be.

Is it easier to be a teenager without having to deal with parenting a child? It was for me. As a teenager, I thought about the many things that I believed parenting a child at a young age would keep me from doing (college, a great job, travel, etc.) But we are increasingly seeing many young mothers who, despite the odds, are surviving, their children are healthy, and they are surrounded by people who support them.

Are we inadvertently allowing stigma and shame to frame how we respond to teen pregnancy? Yes. In New York City and in other cities nationally, “pregnancy schools” were created in an attempt to shield young pregnant high school students from the stigma associated with teen pregnancy, with many of them closing due to lack of success.

Can stigma and shock value lessen the number of teen pregnancies? Sure. I mean, it’s been working for the anti-smoking campaigns and obesity advertisements that have been popping up in recent months. But it doesn’t always work. Just look at how the government continues to give millions of money to abstinence-until-marriage programs that continue to be proven ineffective.

So, what can we do to lift up and support teen mothers?

We need to do what we can to make sure that young women know all of their options, and if becoming a mother is the best option they make for themselves, then we have to support them in that. It may not be easy, but seeking out supportive services together is a heck of a lot better than lecturing a young woman on birth control, condoms, and abstinence AFTER she’s already received a positive pregnancy test.

We need to develop more programming, services, and innovative strategies that help young women who are already mothers or expecting mothers. And they need the funding to match. Organizations such as Insight Teen Parent Program, Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, The Generations Program , New Moms, Planned Parenthood, Healthy Teen Network, Strong Families, and FamilyWorks are doing a lot of amazing work for teen parents. (We also need to provide just as much support to young fathers as well.)

Most importantly, we need to find a way to lift the stigma associated with becoming a teen parent. With ample support, resources, positive adult involvement, and peer education, young parents can do what they need to do for the betterment of themselves and their children. Instead of shaming and blaming pregnant teens and teen mothers, let’s focus on making sure they get to their prenatal appointments, help them buy baby supplies, and even accompanying them to parenting classes.

Are we better off becoming parents when we feel we are ready (emotionally, physically, financially, etc.)? Yeah. Is it easier for girls to not have to worry about all of this in their teen years? Of course. I’m not advocating that everybody run out and become a teen parent. What I’m advocating for is compassion and accountability. The support that teen mothers can receive can make the difference between a teen mother that beats the odds stacked against her and a teen mother who doesn’t succeed.

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23 May, 2012

We’re Fighting for More Than Just Abortion

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T17:47:21-04:00May 23rd, 2012|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: reproductive justice|0 Comments

What brought me to the reproductive justice* movement? Well…

It was November 2003. I was in the fall semester of my sophomore at Spelman College. I volunteered during the last 2 days of a 4 day conference hosted by SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, with the last 2 days of the conference being held on Spelman’s campus. Those two days changed my life. I met so many women and young women of color who represented many organizations, communities, campuses, and agencies. They all came to the conference with different focuses (abortion rights, gender justice, birthing rights, immigrant rights, HIV, among many) yet they all shared the same purpose: to work towards a society in which women have complete control over their reproductive health and well-being. It was even more empowering that these women were women of color (Black, Latina, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Native American/Indigenous).

I’ve been in this movement for nearly 9 years. It’s been filled with many wonderful moments that make me so proud, but there have been many days where I have asked myself why do I continue to do this work. At times, I can become so angry. I ask myself, “Are people really this uninformed/confused/crazy/nuts/insert adjective?”

Why am I angry? Let’s see… (more…)

16 May, 2012

Do You Know Who You’re Talking To?: Effective Messaging for Young Women of Color

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T17:46:14-04:00May 16th, 2012|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: Youth|0 Comments

This weekend, I will be attending and speaking at the New York City Reproductive Justice Media Conference , sponsored by the New York City Reproductive Justice Coalition, in collaboration with Women’s eNews. This conference will focus on re-framing the discussion on what reproductive justice means, how to create effective messaging that is tailored to your audience, and how to communicate with the media and public about reproductive justice. I will be speaking on effective messaging for young women of color (YWOC). I’m looking forward to connecting, building, and learning as much as I can this weekend from some amazing activists and journalists. This is a very important discussion to have, and with 2012 presidential election just 6 months away, everyone is trying to push their issues and campaigns to the forefront. Not only that, but many want definitive answers on where the lawmakers stands on the issues they care about.

(What is the reproductive justice framework, you may be wondering? Here’s an awesome PDF by Forward Together (formally Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice) , which highlights in detail what the reproductive justice (RJ) framework is, as well as the differences between reproductive health, reproductive rights, and reproductive justice.)

When it comes to young women of color (YWOC), there are so many coalitions, groups, organizations, TV shows, music, movies, books, programs, and other entities out there vying for their attention. Historically, the voices of YWOC have often not been meaningfully included in progressive movements. With the exception of organizations that specifically target YWOC for their campaigns and programming, YWOC’s inclusion in the developing, delivering, or receiving end of messages directed towards them and designed with their values, beliefs and needs in mind, have been few and far between. Also, just because a message resonates with YWOC doesn’t mean that it’s positive.

How can we effectively reach them when there are so many influences out there? Do we know who you’re talking to?

Why Messaging to Reach Young Women of Color (YWOC) is Important

Back in 2007, I co-presented a workshop called “Do You Know Who You’re Talking To?: Effective Messaging for Young Women of Color (YWOC)” during the 2007 Women, Action, and Media (WAM!) Conference in Massachusetts, with my good friend Candace Webb, MPH, CHES. In front of a packed room, we discussed why creating effective messaging to reach YWOC is important.

In general, one of the reasons why creating effective messaging is important is because, in order to get what you want (develop better policies, raise more funding, get more press, etc.), you need some segment of public support to move your agenda forward. Secondly, raising awareness and making sure that the public is informed are other reasons why messaging is important. One thing that Candace mentioned during our presentation is that messaging that’s thoughtful and succinct can enable organizations and communities to find a unified voice on a specific social justice campaign. Third, messaging is important for grabbing attention. Think of news reports, magazine articles, and songs out there that have instantly grabbed your attention. Notice that many of the messaging may not have been positive, but it somehow stirred something within you that prompted you to take action, whether it was turning up the volume on the TV, reading the article more thoroughly, or turning off the radio.

Despite YWOC’s involvement in social justice work and the need for more leadership opportunities, very little research has been done on effective strategies for reaching YWOC. When asked why messaging to reach YWOC is so important within progressive movements, Daisy Hernandez and Pandora L. Leong of In These Times (2004), has this to say:

“Progressive movements have a long history of internal debates, but for feminists of color the question of racism and feminism isn’t about theories. It’s about determining our place in the movement. As the daughters of both the civil rights and feminist movements, we were bred on grrlpower, identity politics, and the emotional and often financial ties to our brothers, fathers, aunties, and moms back home, back South, back in Pakistan, Mexico or other homelands. We live at the intersections of identities, the places where social movements meet, and it’s here that our feminism begins.”

In order to help cultivate the next generation of young women activists, we need to do a better job at reaching out to young people in ways that affirms them and helps them to raise their voices. Also, we need to recognize that YWOC are dealing with a lot of issues these days: racism, sexism, ageism, immigrant status, education, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, among others. How can we develop effective messaging for YWOC that’s affirming, inclusive, and timely? How can we help YWOC decipher between messaging that’s for their benefit versus messaging that’s used to stigmatize, put down, and exclude their voices?

What Are Some of the Basic Principles for Messaging? (more…)

9 May, 2012

Self Love is the Best Love: National Masturbation Month

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T17:45:29-04:00May 9th, 2012|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: sexuality|0 Comments

May is the month of many awareness days, in particular National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month and National HIV Vaccine Awareness Day. But did you know that May is also National Masturbation Month? It’s ok. Many people don’t know because, like masturbation itself, no one wants to acknowledge something that’s so commonly practiced.

How did National Masturbation Month come about?

According to EmpowHer, National Masturbation Month was coined in response to the 1995 resignation of United States Surgeon general, Dr. Joycelyn Elders. During a 1994 World AIDS Day event at the United Nations, Dr. Elders, in response to an audience member’s question about whether masturbation can be instrumental in delaying the onset of early sexual activity in young people, said: “I think it is something that is part of human sexuality and a part of something that perhaps should be taught.”

Things didn’t fair well for Dr. Elders, who later was forced to resign in 1995. But the positive is that Dr. Elders is still highly revered and vocal about discussing “taboo” and “difficult” subjects, especially when it comes to sex and sexuality. Another positive is that we have National Masturbation Month! The purpose of National Masturbation Month, for the people who coined it, was to not only raise awareness about the firing of Dr. Elders, but to also get people talking about something that people refuse to acknowledge that they do: masturbate.

What are some of the myths about masturbation?

One of the reasons why masturbation is such a taboo thing to discuss is due to shame and stigma associated with self-pleasuring. Here are some myths I’ve heard along the way about masturbation:

You’ll go blind.

Your mental health will be compromised.

You’ll grow hair on your hands.

You’re some kind of pervert.

It’s only something you do if you’re not in a relationship, and if you do it too often, you’re screwing (no pun intended) up your sexual functioning.

You won’t be able to perform sexually with another person.

Now that we have those myths out of the way, what are some benefits to masturbation? There are plenty! Here are some physical and psychological reasons: (more…)

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