Scholarships/Fellowships Opportunities

• Harvard Medical School (HMS): The Mongan Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Minority Health Policy (formerly The Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy, est. 1996). View Full Announcement
• The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU): HACU National Internship Program (HNIP). View Full Announcement
• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Health Policy Fellows program. View Full Announcement
• US Office of Personnel Management: Presidential Management Fellowship 2013. View Full Announcement

Behavioral Health Responders: Deployment Support

		Available Now: Deployment Supports for Disaster Behavioral Health Responders The goal of this 30-minute podcast is to prepare disaster behavioral health (DBH) responders and their family members for deployment by reviewing pre- and post-deployment guidelines and ways to prepare for the stress of deployment and reintegration into their regular work and family lives. The podcast aims to accomplish the following: Increase awareness of the unique issues DBH responders face, especially with numerous or long-term assignments. Provide pre-deployment guidelines to assist DBH responders and their family members as they prepare for deployment. Provide post-deployment guidelines and practices that enable reintegration with family members and routine employment. The featured speaker is April Naturale, Ph.D., of the SAMHSA Disaster Technical Assistance Center (DTAC). Dr. Naturale is a traumatic stress specialist with 25 years of experience in health/mental health administration. She directed New York's disaster mental health response following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Dr. Naturale also spent several years in the Gulf Coast after large-scale hurricanes devastated the area. SAMHSA DTAC encourages participation by behavioral health, public health, and other professionals involved in emergency management and disaster response. Watch or Listen to the Podcast You may download the slides and the transcript by visiting the SAMHSA DTAC Archived Webinar Page. If you have questions or need additional information, please contact Lori McGee at 240-515-8414 or lori.mcgee@icfi.com. We would appreciate your thoughts on this podcast or suggestions for future podcasts/webinars. Please send feedback to dtac@samhsa.hhs.gov.

TRAC: The Global Standard for Baseline Due Diligence

TRAC is a new global online due diligence platform for supply and marketing chain compliance that captures, assesses and shares baseline due diligence information on organizations and individuals and issues universal ID numbers to approved applicants. It is designed to streamline compliance, procurement and contracting operations while ensuring that basic due diligence is met. TRAC is entirely free for companies to access – whether or not they are TRACE member companies.

To learn more about TRAC, view our 90 second video, or visit www.tracnumber.com.


TRACE International, Inc. is a non-profit membership association that pools resources to provide practical and cost-effective anti-bribery compliance solutions for multinational companies and their commercial intermediaries (sales agents and representatives, consultants, distributors, suppliers, etc.).
TRACE provides several core services and products, including: due diligence reports on commercial intermediaries; model compliance policies; an online Resource Center with foreign local law summaries, including guidelines on gifts and hospitality; in-person and online anti-bribery training; and research on corporate best practices.

For multinational companies, TRACE provides a practical and cost-effective alternative to increasingly expensive and time-consuming corporate compliance. For commercial intermediaries, TRACE offers a marketing advantage by creating a bridge between them and companies doing business internationally.

Companies cannot afford to ignore the realities of doing business in today's increasingly complex compliance environment. Over the past 15 years, an increasing number of countries have enacted anti-bribery laws to implement international anti-corruption conventions criminalizing the bribery of foreign public officials. The new laws typically state that a business will be liable for the corrupt acts and/or the improper payments made by an intermediary if management "knew or should have known" that a particular intermediary was likely to make an inappropriate payment. Thus, companies are required to conduct sufficient due diligence on prospective intermediaries to ensure that they are committed to transparent business practices regardless of business pressure, local law or custom. Anti-bribery laws, however, are deliberately vague on the issue of "sufficient due diligence."

TRACE was founded to achieve economies of scale and set a common standard for two shared elements of anti-bribery compliance: due diligence reviews and anti-bribery training for business intermediaries and company employees based around the world.

TRACE is a 501(c)(6) non-profit membership association, organized under the laws of the District of Columbia and, as such, does not pay tax on its net revenue. TRACE was founded in 2001.

2012 Science of Eliminating Health Disparities Summit October 31 – November 2, 2012

2012 Science of Eliminating Health Disparities Summit

October 31 – November 2, 2012

Gaylord Hotel and Convention Center

National Harbor, MD

The 2012 Science of Eliminating Health Disparities Summit promises to be a stimulating learning experience, and a chance to develop new partnerships with others committed to the quest to eliminate health disparities.  It will bring together national and international leaders in the field of health disparities representing multiple disciplines and sectors to share cutting-edge science, policy, practice, and various results-oriented approaches to address health disparities.  

Come and learn about the progress that communities across the United States and around the world are making to improve the health of underserved populations, the challenges they face, and opportunities to foster collaborative alliances to build a healthier global society.

Sessions are now open for registration http://www.nimhd.nih.gov/summit_site/programAgenda.html

 

Workshops
Pre-Summit Sessions
Plenary Sessions
Concurrent Sessions
Summit Agenda

To register for the sessions, you must first complete the general registration http://citfm.cit.nih.gov/registration/register.php and use the password you to receive to access the sessions registration page.

Hotel Reservations Deadline: Monday, October 1, 2012

If you have questions, please contact 2012summit@mail.nih.gov or call 240-395-0549.

3 Ways to Make Your Vote Count in a Money-Soaked Election

 

  Your favored candidates may be outspent, but if they out-organize, they may be able to prevail. 

 

by Fran Korten

posted Sep 19, 2012

 

 

 

 

Photo by Melissa Baldwin.

Recently, a respected friend sent me an outraged email. His subject line: "BOYCOTT VOTING!" He was at wit's end over the vast sums of money that wealthy individuals and corporations are pouring into our elections: $400 million from the Koch Brothers; $100 million from Sheldon Adelson. If big money is going to buy the election, he said, then he will “withdraw his consent” by not voting.
I, too, am apoplectic at the money flooding our elections. It speaks of a level of corruption that undermines my hopes for solving the big problems of our time. That’s why I’m promoting the passage of a constitutional amendment to curtail unlimited election spending. 

But is boycotting the vote the right response? Here’s how I see it: the big money doesn’t buy votes. It mostly buys television ads to influence our votes or discourage us from voting at all. So why would I fall into the trap of doing what the big money wants? As I wrote to my friend, after the election, no one will notice your boycott. They will only notice who won. Think of your vote as an act of protest and vote for candidates who vow to change the system. Here's what you can do:

1. Vote the Whole Ballot

 Vote the whole ballot. When we reach the bottom of the ballot, many of us find a bunch of names and initiatives we don’t know 

  and skip them. Judicial positions are notorious for low vote tallies. So a few voters can determine who wins positions that can have

How Voter Suppression Could Swing the Election             a huge impact on our lives. I prepare by reading the
It won’t be easy to protect our votes from being                      voter pamphlet with care, especially watching for partisan

sidelined and stolen this year, but here are a                             buzzwords. Then I check with friends for additional

 few simple things we can do.                                   information. I also sign up for emails from organizations that  

                                                               recommend candidates who match my values. 

                                                               So when I go to vote, I make my choices with confidence.

2. Contribute to Campaigns ...

Another conundrum in this money-soaked election season is whether to give money to candidates. Does our measly $25, $50, or even $500 mean anything when the 1 percent can so far outspend us? My husband is pretty cynical about political contributions. But do we want to force candidates to get their funds only from the wealthy? One candidate told me, “I need to raise at least one-fifth of what my deep-pocketed opponent raises. Otherwise, I’m just not a player.” I like this candidate. I think she has smarts and integrity. She wants to overturn Citizens United and other laws that make campaigns so expensive. So I (yes, together with my husband) made a contribution to her campaign, as well as to several other candidates we believe in.

3. ... But Not Just Money

Fortunately, money is not the only way to influence an election. Giving time can be even more valuable. One respectful conversation with a potential voter can reverse the effects of thousands of dollars of ads. Going door to door, phoning, helping people get registered and to the polls can all make a difference. Your favored candidates may be outspent, but if they out-organize, they may be able to prevail. Organizing, of course, means getting people like you and me to volunteer.
It’s easy to be discouraged about a political system that seems so out of reach. I take heart from history. In the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, income inequality was similar to today’s. There was widespread political corruption. Then people rose up and ushered in the Progressive Era. They voted in candidates who instituted the estate tax and progressive income taxes, changed election laws, and made many other reforms.

By the 1950s through the 1970s we had an expanding middle class and a fairer election system. We can make those changes again. But only if we get engaged and informed, and vote.

---

Fran Korten wrote this article for It's Your Body, the Fall 2012 issue of YES! Magazine. Fran is publisher of YES

 http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/its-your-body/is-your-vote-for-sale?utm_source=wkly20120921&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mrKorten