April 2023 Connections

Antione Holmes is Director of Health Education and Outreach at the Pride Center. He's responsible for the management, oversight and implementation of all programs and grants pertaining to HIV-related services. This includes HIV testing and linkage to care, as well as PrEP and Ending the Epidemic (ETE) prevention services for LGBTQ+ people. Antione also provides supervision to staff funded through the Young Men Who Have Sex with Men, Trans Health and Trans Youth initiatives.

With so much happening it's no surprise that, according to Antione, the Pride Center never really has a “typical” workday. "There’s always something unique going on," he said. "But if I had to describe a typical day at the Pride Center, I’d say that it’s full of fun, energetic staff who are providing various services to clients, soothing music playing throughout the space, and hot beverages on standby for anyone who visits. There’s never a dull moment at the Pride Center because our clients always bring amazing vibrations and entertainment our way through animated stories, creative arts, jokes, and moonbeam smiles. The Pride Center is like no other!"

Each of the initiatives under Antione's direction has a unique mission, but he says the Trans Youth Initiative stands out the most at the moment. "We’re living in a time when more transgender and nonbinary youth are coming out to their parents as young as the age of 5. Families are seeking guidance. Our Trans Youth Initiative provides therapeutic programming to transgender and nonbinary youth ages 5 -17 through activities, support groups, and outings, along with groups and committees for parents and caregivers. The overall goal of the program is to create a safe, celebratory space where transgender and nonbinary youth and families can interact and learn from one another instead of falling into a state of isolation and emptiness." Services such as referrals, assistance with legal name changes, peer opportunities, and many others also serve the Pride Center's mission of providing support and care to transgender and non-binary youth and their families. "I feel satisfied

when I witness clients walk into the center and light up with excitement and joy. Life can be extremely daunting, especially as a queer individual, so being able to see members of the LGBTQ+ community receive instant gratification simply from seeing our staff and requesting our services makes me feel like the work my team and I are doing is beyond necessary in Western New York."

Antione and his team face obstacles despite the wonderful, necessary work they're doing every day. "One of our biggest challenges is engaging with target populations," said Antione. "Millions of LGBTQ+ people have lost their lives to HIV/AIDS throughout the history of the pandemic, but there are still people who struggle with understanding the importance of their sexual health, which makes it difficult to get buy-in from the community at times. Especially considering that when reviewing the social determinants of health, clients are often struggling with stable employment, housing and other issues as well. In order to combat this, the Pride Center will continue to develop creative, fun, and innovative strategies to better engage clients, while also building solid relationships with other community stakeholders throughout Western New York."

Antione was introduced to the Pride Center while still in college through the Medaille University Gay Straight Alliance's events and outreach opportunities. "I'd never taken the time to physically visit, Antione said. "While with my last employer, the Pride Center rose to the

there's never a dull moment at the Pride Center - our clients always bring amazing vibrations

surface again when I began conducting research for LGBTQ+ foundation training providers in the region. I partnered with Pride’s Education and Engagement team to have them conduct an LGBTQ+ foundations training for my previous team, which in turn led to me forming a solid relationship with the entire center. Not long after our collaboration, I learned that they were hiring. The position resonated with me when I reviewed the overall description and associated responsibilities. I knew that if I had the opportunity to serve as a leader for the Pride Center, I’d be able to make a significant impact on the lives of people in Western New York’s LGBTQ+ community. After interviewing for the role, I received a phone call from Pride's Executive Director Kelly Craig, who excitedly offered me the role. The rest is history."

Antione grew up on the east side of Buffalo and graduated from the Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts. After finishing high school, he pursued a bachelor’s degree in Communications from Medaille University and graduated in 2021. He then went on to pursue a master’s degree in Organizational Leadership from Medaille and graduated the following year. "I’ve always had a passion for helping other people navigate through complex situations that life presents through encouragement, empathy, and effective leadership," he said. "Which is why I continue to serve organizations that share a similar mission and vision as my own. Before working at the Pride Center, I was employed at Child & Family Services for a total of three years, where I operated as the Residential Learning and Development Manager for Conners Children’s Center."

"When I’m not at work, I enjoy doing things like going to the gym, reading books, dancing, writing, and spending quality time with friends and family. I also have a passion for traveling to different places, which is something that I’ve had the opportunity to do with my family since a small child. Like many other people, one of my goals is to travel at least half of the world before I reach my final years on this Earth. My passion for learning about the world and seeing new places will never die."

Evergreen's Lean In resource group held a variety of activities throughout March to celebrate Women's History Month. This year's theme was "Embrace Equality". There was the very first Lean In Circle over Zoom, a Purple Day and a Vision Board event where members gathered and created visualizations of their goals. Thank you Tiffany Valentin for the great photos!

If you have any questions about COVID-19, or our vaccination program, please send an email to COVID19questions@evergreenhs.org. Or, visit ADP or evergreenhs.org for more information.

Mark your calendar! The submission deadline for the May 2023 issue of Connections is April 19. Be sure to get your content in before the deadline to guarantee placement. Kids, pets, vacations, recipes -we want to share it all with Team Evergreen! Email EvergreenConnections via Outlook.

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Information Systems Team is nearing the final stage of developing Data Learning Pathways tailored for different roles throughout Evergreen. These pathways were developed based on results from our most recent data engagement survey and content has been curated to strengthen vital data-related skills within each role. The pathways are also meant to have some overlap; it is our belief that many people will find more than one pathway useful to their job or making them curious. In fact, we hope they do! Each pathway will have multiple “lessons” within it, and you will also have the opportunity to engage with and access lessons that are outside of the main pathway(s) you pursue. After these are launched internally, there will be opportunities for feedback to ensure these resources mature and evolve along with the organization. Thank you to everyone who has and will participate! Here are the learning pathways:

DATA FOUNDATIONS | This pathway will offer an opportunity to make sure that people in a wide variety of roles have access to foundational data skills. This is valuable in supporting people who are just learning these skills, and to support us ALL in having shared language around data. From data collection and data entry to data quality and the ability to interact with data in our day to day lives; this is our data literacy “101”.

DATA INVESTIGATOR | There are people in many types of roles who need to find more information in their day-to-day work. Research, finding answers in unconventional places, following clues, and engaging with your curiosity and inquisitive nature will be part of this training. This pathway will include evaluating sources, interpreting data, and critical thinking.

DATA PROBLEM SOLVER | This pathway is designed to help people who use data to

solve problems, gain more skill in drawing conclusions from data, and support data-informed decision making. It will include interpreting data, confronting inner bias, understanding data visualizations, aggregating data, and visualizing data.

DATA REPORTER | This pathway will strengthen skills around reporting data. It is geared toward people who access and read reports as well as those who create them, either internally or for external regulatory bodies. This pathway will improve your ability to prepare data as well as recognize problems in data. It includes skill development across different areas that impact reporting, such as working with data in Excel, data quality and validation, and preparing data for presentations.

DATA DESIGNER/VISUAL DATA STORYTELLER | This pathway is for anyone who communicates visually with data. It will include tools for designing infographics, learning about charts (and more charts), dashboards, and data visualization best practices.

DATA COMMUNICATOR | Presentation Data Storyteller – This Pathway will focus on skills needed to effectively use data to support data-informed presentations and meetings, or other less traditional situations you may need to present data to others. It will include communicating with data, criteria, interpreting metrics and visualizations, and inspiration from other data communicators.

DATA LEADERSHIP | This pathway is for people who are data-based decision makers and need to be able to trust and interpret the data they are using to forge paths and develop policy. It will include communicating with data, interpreting metrics and visualizations, data culture, data-informed decisions vs instinct-based decisions, high level dashboards, and inspiration from other data leaders.

This month's Wellness Challenge winner is Susan Hanner, a Registered Nurse in Primary & Specialty Care. Why did Susan participate in the WC? "I love a challenge," she said. "I love contests and chances at winning. I'm more excited about winning than the prize." Susan says becoming healthier is her goal for the year. "Hydrating is so important. At work it's easy because it's a routine, but being busy on weekends makes it a challenge." Susan offers encouragement to anyone who wants to join the WC: "Take little steps and realize we all need encouragement." Great job, Susan, and stay hydrated!

The following story originally appeared on the Evergreen Health blog. Click HERE to visit the blog and see a video of Kim's speech at the Huddle.

THISyear Evergreen Health is celebrating our 40th birthday. In four decades of serving our community, we’ve grown from a small but mighty team of volunteers to a multi-service healthcare organization with over 500 employees, 6 service locations, 11 buildings and over 28,000 patients. This year, we’re taking a moment (or many moments!) to look back at our history and celebrate how far we’ve come, and to look forward as we continue to grow.

Evergreen’s birthday celebrations started at our annual Huddle in January, where we celebrated the big 4-0 with cake and balloons, and with words from some of the people who have been a part of Evergreen’s history for many of our 40 years.

One of those folks is Kim Lombard, Evergreen’s longest-standing employee, who was hired in 1993 when Evergreen was still known as AIDS Community Services (ACS). At that time, Kim was looking for “a job that meant something.” She applied for an administrative assistant position with ACS, who then had about 25 employees working on the front lines of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Western New York.

Kim recalls how in the 80’s and 90’s, ACS was entrenched in preventing the spread of HIV, treating health complications due to AIDS, fighting stigma and making people who were dying of AIDS-related complications as comfortable as possible in their last days.

This early work was heartbreaking and difficult, and from it emerged Evergreen’s mission to provide people in need with health and supportive services that are accessible, unconditional, and judgmentfree.

“No matter how much we’ve grown, the spirit of who we were in our beginning has carried over into who we are now,” Kim said.

As the needs of people living with HIV and at risk of acquiring HIV became better understood over time, we expanded our services to provide specialized care for communities who are disproportionately affected by HIV like communities of color, LGBTQ+ communities, and people who use drugs.

As medical breakthroughs in the prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS were made in the mid-90’s, we were able to begin offering services to anyone in need of care, not just the populations who were most affected by HIV. In 2011, we adopted the

name Evergreen Health to reflect this growth.

In the last decade, Evergreen has continued to adapt to new health needs in our region as they’ve emerged. While ending the HIV epidemic is still central to our mission, we’ve also answered the call to address other urgent health issues that have since arisen in WNY, like the opioid use epidemic, the mental health crisis and the COVID pandemic. As Kim said at the Huddle: “No matter how much we’ve grown, the spirit of who we were in our beginning has carried over into who we are now.”

Evergreen’s roots are in serving those who were rejected by the health care system during the AIDS crisis, and we'll always prioritize caring for the health and wellness of underserved communities. Forty years since our beginnings as AIDS Community Services, we’re able to do so much more: Evergreen is a place where anyone can get unconditionally non-judgmental and affirming medical, behavioral and supportive care under one roof.

The 40 years of history that have brought us to where we are today, and the many people who have been a part of that history, deserve to be celebrated! Our organization-wide birthday party was just the beginning – keep an eye out for more celebrations to come throughout 2023. - by Jean Conway

You can alert your fellow employees of an on-campus emergency by dialing x2222 on your desktop phone. This paging system should only be used in true emergencies such as code blue (overdose response), medical emergencies for patients or staff, fire alarms, active attackers or any other true emergency. Dial x2222 from your desktop phone at Evergreen, the Pride Center or Community Access Services. The phone line will be silent; you won't hear a dial tone. Don’t worry, the phone is recording!

Say your message loudly and clearly into the phone receiver. Make sure to include the location of the incident. Repeat your message one more time, then hang up the phone. Your recorded message will be heard over the intercom system for all buildings. Your message will not play until after you hang up the phone.

If you have any questions regarding this system or any other safety protocol, please reach out to Robert Moore. You can also check out the Safety & Security section of the Hub on Blink. Stay safe, Evergreen!

Publisher/Layout

John Carocci

Copy Editors

Jean Conway

Kristy Mangel

Contributors

Jean Conway

Megan Fagyas

Marcia Derby

Eric Poniatowski

Tiffany Valentin

Nancy J. Parisi

Connections is the official monthly newsletter for employees and board members of Evergreen Health and its affilliates, the Pride Center of Western New York and Community Access Services. You can submit photos, comments or a "hello" via Outlook at Evergreen Connections.

ADP now provides a Total Rewards Statement to show the full value of your compensation beyond gross pay. While your pay is the largest portion of your compensation, this statement is a great tool to help you better understand the full value of the varied compensation types provided by Evergreen, such as your benefits and retirement plan investments. The 2022 statement is now available when you log into ADP and go to Myself > Pay > Total Rewards. Check out the new feature to learn more, and contact Human Resources with any questions.

THIS

month's Wellness Rock Star is Behavioral Health Counselor Emily Ryan. Emily works with patients as they navigate the challenges, barriers and stressors of recovery. She enjoys the diversity in our patient population and pivoting to meet each person's unique needs. "There's no such thing as typical," said Emily. "But that’s all part of the fun!"

Managing stress is an important part of life, for our patients and staff alike. "Understanding and prioritizing stress management is a crucial step in empowering ourselves to live our most authentic life possible," said Emily. "We are all deserving of joy, peace and quality of life every day. Incorporating stress management skills helps us all unlock those qualities of life."

Emily find great satisfaction in seeing patients take back control of their lives and find value in themselves. "I love watching a patient come into their potential and get excited about living life. And, certainly, being able to work in a department alongside compassionate, intelligent and incredible team members."

It's rewarding work, but not without challenges. "It's difficult bearing witness to the moments when a patient does not feel worthy, bearing witness to our society failing at providing basic needs to each person. Not to mention how difficult it is to work next to Rachel’s and not buy their delicious food every day!"

Emily has a passion for the psychology of human behavior and wellness, which makes her a perfect fit for Evergreen and the Center for Behavioral Health. She offers this advice on how to incorporate stress management into everyday life for the "compassionate, intelligent and incredible" members of Team Evergreen: "Start by identifying the barriers to reducing your stress. Create small daily goals and find ways to pause. There are countless opportunities to welcome moments of peace into each day. If I can be a support or resource to anyone searching for these opportunities, don’t hesitate to connect with me!"

She also offers one last reminder. "Be yourself so that those looking for you can find you." Thank you for the great advice, and everything else you do for our patients, Emily!

The Buffalo Sabres hosted their third annual Pride Night on March 27 as they faced off against the Montreal Canadiens. According to NHL.com, Pride Night "helps us grow the game (of hockey) by supporting diversity and inclusion." The Sabres issued a statement as well, saying, "The night aims to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community and reinforce the our commitment to building an inclusive fanbase, making KeyBank Center a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQIA+ fans and their allies." Players wore special Pridethemed jerseys and used Pride tape on their sticks during warmups. The jerseys and sticks were later auctioned to benefit local Pride organizations. Note: it's hard to tell, but that's Tee Douglas of the Pride Center riding the

Zamboni in the photo to the right.

Abigail Borrelli

Yhandisha Lobley-Thrist

Chelsea Coyne .......................................

Rosemary Roche

Cynthia Garcia

Dale Kingston

Laurie Matson

John Gusky

Gabriella Jaramillo

Kristen Abers .........................................

Julie Rapp

Gretchen Vinson.

Kelly Craig

Jessica Glaser .......................................

Chelest Ponzo

Annastasia Marburger

Nicole Dommer

Renee Hartson .......................................

Matthew Iwanski-Jackson

Amanda Dietz

Michael Key

John Argo ...............................................

Maria LoTempio

Kristen Bechdel

Kerri Jacobsen

Kimberly Harding ..................................

Alexander Chesley

Brandee Martin

Jeante Fitzsimmons

Marielena Camacho

Elijah Jimerson

Danielle LaMoy

Khristopher Decker ...............................

Jamie Keuck

Carinne Medley

David Pena

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Clockwise from upper left: Eric Poniatowski and Stephanie Vroman-Goodrich submitted selfies to the Wellness Challenge. The 50PLUS team poses in front of their billboard at Delaware Avenue and Chippewa Street. 50PLUS is part of Evergreen's new five year People Aging with HIV pilot program. Community Access Services hosted a Women's History Month giveaway in March with free hygiene baskets and a choice of either an air fryer or pot/pan set. There were nearly 70 participants, well above and beyond the target. Great job, CAS! Look for information about future testing events. Spcial thanks to Brandy Heath for the CAS photos.

The UB School of Law's OUTLaw group honored Jessica Baker at their annual dinner and awards celebration. OUTLaw is a student organization that promotes a positive atmosphere for LGBTQ+ students and their allies. Kudos, Jessica! Photo courtesy of Nancy J. Parisi.