Reality Check – Inception and Expansion

Serena: [00:00:00] Welcome to the reality check psychosis is real. So is recovery podcast.

Ashley: I'm Dr. Ashley Weiss. I'm a child adolescent psychiatrist

Serena: and I'm Serena Chaudry. I'm a clinical social worker

Ashley: and we are the co founders of Epic NOLA, which is the early psychosis intervention clinic in New Orleans and also the co founders of calm clear answers to Louisiana mental health.

Serena: All right, on today's episode, we are going to be talking about the inception and expansion of CALM, how it's integrated into our clinical work at EPIC, and how you all can get involved.

Ashley: First, I think we should talk about why so many acronyms and that inception of a movie about dreams. Um, what does it stand for and how is it

Serena: created?

Yes.

Ashley: So [00:01:00] So Literally, and this is my first recollection, I'd be curious to hear, like, your first memory of Calm Home, but I remember sitting in an office in a suburb of New Orleans called Metairie, and we were, it was our first office in the, within the, within Symphony of Family Services when we were, like, uh, First starting, and I remember seeing the nodes for Hari launching mind map and seeing it on social media and thinking it was like the coolest thing because it was like exactly the community facing part that needed to be there to do a really good clinical service.

Cause like. There's not many mental health services, especially not for first episode psychosis. So it's not like you need to advertise. I have a psychosis clinic advertising about like getting [00:02:00] people early and getting people there quickly. And I'm not big on social, but I just remember seeing my map and thinking it was so cool.

You remember the bus that had my map? And they like internal experience, how it went through the, imagine you're bombarded with voices and it got smaller and smaller. I remember seeing that, but anyway, back to the clinic at Metairie, I had a no show and I was like, how am I going to get money and do the same thing?

And nobody's, how are we going to do this? And I put together a GoFundMe and yeah, somehow people wanted to donate. It was so random. Anyway, we were going to Milan actually, I think that fall. Yeah, not that we go to Milan, just to go to Milan, but the conference that we love happened to be in Milan in 2017.

But anyway, that was like the idea of having an early detection campaign. When do you first remember hearing about this said early detection [00:03:00] campaign? From the mouth of Vinod

Serena: Shrihari, who was visiting us. Oh, but this must have been after that, because he was in the office. Well, we were still with Symphonia, but we were on Bienville.

And he came, and it was you, Michael, Vinod, and I. And there were a bunch of berries on the table, and he was sitting there. Talking about Barry's compliments of Michael, who's always taking care of us. But Vinod was there visiting

Ashley: and

Serena: I think mostly for clinical purposes, but in that conversation, I remember him talking about both the clinical intervention and mind map.

I don't know where that fits into the whole sequence of things, but that is my

Ashley: Yeah. Cause I had to have been, I remember the GoFundMe started at the old clinic. And then there was like the prep for it and everything, but we had to have talked about it in one of the plane chats. [00:04:00]

Serena: He came to New Orleans before Milan, right?

Ashley: Yeah. Because, Oh, he came for, I met him before. So that was 2016. So he came to talk in December of 2016 at Tulane's brain and behavior conference. And, and he visited the clinic and we probably moved, so it was probably I should look up they'll go fund me like dates. So that was probably right before we moved into the, well, we had moved into the news space to go fund me was before.

Because when we went to Milan and summer, fall of 2017, I was talking with Glenn from Red Rock and we were doing those videos. Right. You were like, yeah, and you were wearing white and you were very serious. I think I was wearing a white coat. You were. That's so weird. It wasn't a doctor coat. It [00:05:00] was a fashion.

That's not me. No, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, when I went and I went to visit New Haven. To do like a, like to visit step at new Haven and Glenn filmed me doing this, this video for the GoFundMe in this weird hotel room sounds, I mean, it was where I was like begging for money. Oh yes. Cause we put that on the GoFundMe to try to get more funding and he just did it as like a favor.

And then yeah. And then we. Then Milan, and then yeah, Glenn came

Serena: that was the first time I met Glenn, maybe, and he was there with the node and he was filming all sort of the tons stuck on my

Ashley: map. And I was like, yeah, this seems cool. This is really cool. We need to have

Serena: one

Ashley: of these

Serena: [00:06:00] and then we went back and then Glenn visited us in New Orleans and we brainstormed and we looked at the different locations

Ashley: of the big, beautiful sea that I didn't understand.

For a long time,

Serena: but I didn't think it was all that and now I think it's everything,

Ashley: right? Yeah, and then I couldn't let the word calm roll. I get didn't feel Mm hmm didn't feel like natural but that's so cool though about working with people that do something like the outside of what we do and getting their perspective and I remember like Glenn when he visited feeling He was like, I was walking around the court.

I can't do his Australian accent, but he was walking around the French quarter and the mystery of new Orleans and the water. And it's like intense, but you guys have to be like approachable. I was like, oh, intense and approachable. That sounds [00:07:00] like my personality. And. And he was like, really an advocate for calling it calm.

And I remember being caught up to like, well, where's the M? Because it's clear answers to Louisiana

Serena: mental health. I remember in the beginning, I had to practice saying it to myself all the time in order to get it right.

Ashley: Calm? Yeah, but

Serena: I had to remember what it did for, but that's all to say we worked with this marketing company and we were inspired by our sister clinic in New Haven and Vinod to create this campaign that came into being about a year after we opened the clinic.

Ashley: Yeah. I think the coolest part. That's great. Has been to like, to have a really kind of passion project, uh, kind of like the clinic itself, but that it's been able [00:08:00] to like, grow with input from people that work with us. Obviously, within marketing and stuff, but from our patients, you know, and their, and their input.

And then personally seeing our kids like come to all those little events that we would pop up in the city. Remember when we did the red beans and rice cook off and buy water? Yes. I think that that was like a wake up one morning, bored and trying to get little kids out of the house. And I said, we'll go to a fundraiser and cook red beans.

Serena: But it was so fun. And I think that's right. Like the community spirit of calm is involving everyone. And we would have these little fundraisers right at that dog. And our kids were going around putting calm stamping everybody. Yeah. Yeah. And then at originally is, I think fundraiser there where they donated some of their proceeds to calm.

So we've had a lot of [00:09:00] like, yeah, 10 percent of the sales. Which is awesome. And I remember in the beginning it being a little challenging to help people understand the difference between Calm and Epic, and they would get confused, and I think we finally, over time, with good marketing and repetitive messaging, have helped people to see how the two are integrated, and that being we have this clinical treatment, which is Epic, the Early Psychosis Intervention Clinic, and this Psychosis Awareness Clinic.

campaign, which is called Clear Answers to Louisiana Mental Health. Total tangent, I was thinking about this the other day. I remember getting my MPH and, um, one of my professors worked on the anti tobacco campaigns and doing a lot of work around the tobacco industry and trying to, Find the right way forward with all of that.

And he talked to us about social [00:10:00] marketing and I was like, this is the coolest thing to use public health, to integrate public health and marketing. Would that be an amazing thing to do one day?

Ashley: I know I did my MPH and I never had that class.

Serena: Being my professor and he like. Us when we're teaching talked about everything he did that he was passionate about.

And yeah, it was just making linking what we're doing now to that seed. All right. What do you think some of comms biggest accomplishments have been over the last many years?

Ashley: I think having, um, having patients be involved, I think has been the coolest thing. Kind of not what I It's been like totally unexpected how it's kind of changed and not what I It's great, but it's been great.

It's been as it should. And I remember in the beginning as feeling like, okay, are we [00:11:00] really doing early detection work? Are we doing psychosis awareness work? And I remember thinking to myself, what's the difference? And now I'm like, seeing the difference. And then appreciating kind of those earlier conversations.

And I feel like we were really committed to like, just early psych, like to psychosis awareness, but evolving to like early detection really, I think has been a cool thing. Accomplishment, because it's like kind of evolved the way that it should based on what we've experienced in the clinic, like, this is what we need to be doing.

This is and that has been like a, I think, an accomplishment of calm itself. I also, I think, personally, just having it become. I don't know, like noticed in the community and I feel like people are kind of becoming more aware. I think the biggest accomplishment was [00:12:00] marching in the parade or being in the parade and someone coming.

We had the big calm signs and someone coming up and hugging. My friend that was holding the sign and being like, I recognize the C, you guys help my friends. That's awesome. These are like, tiny, tiny details, big accomplishments,

Serena: right? Right. To the impact of this whole campaign, which I agree has just evolved with the clinic has been inspired by patient input, family's input.

And that growth is. It was totally unanticipated and so super authentic. And I think that is one of the things that's been most exciting to me. And it's sort of funny, like every point we get to with calm, I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is the best. Like. The billboards are the best, the, you know, the bus [00:13:00] ads are the best, these videos.

And it makes me super excited to know that there is, there's still something else that we haven't thought of or that a patient hasn't offered. Another thing that I think has been super cool is in the like awareness raising, there's been a fundraising component. We have our annual fundraiser in my mind and then have, you know, implemented some.

Fundraisers throughout the year and with the money we're raising from that, we're able to support our patients directly, right? Like helping with tutoring services, helping with application fees, helping for, you know, going back to school, supporting people and getting their artistic endeavors off the ground.

And that. For me was a totally unanticipated component, but I think a super cool way that this early detection psychosis awareness campaign is sort of like embracing our people.

Ashley: [00:14:00] Yeah, gosh, there's, there's so many things it's been really fun. Yeah, I feel the same way. Every time I see the billboard, every time we do like a new campaign, and I feel like I'm using language that I don't know at all, I try to use marketing language to sound like I know what I'm talking about.

Like I said to one of my residents the other day that I, I needed their, I needed their copy for the website. I was like, you don't even know what you're talking about. I was like, oh, the words. Right, right, right. I need your bio, please. Um, but anyway, I always think it's like the coolest thing. If you could like envision next year, like next year's ideal campaign.

Whoa,

Serena: I don't know. I don't know. But next year's ideal campaign [00:15:00] is beyond Louisiana. I really am excited about the idea of expanding the like platform of calm to other places and spaces. And we've been able to write, like share that with. Share that opportunity with people and I think,

Ashley: well, that's only because you moved.

Serena: Only. Yeah. Call them in California, but I think, right, we've got other people interested in starting something similar in their own states. And so I think that is really cool because at the end of the day, the more people who are aware, the earlier intervention starts, the better outcomes for all. Yeah. So.

Ashley: One other thing when I think about this is the lack of comfort with, like, social media and stuff that inherently I have you, you're not a big social, but seeing, like, all of the people across the world that, like, are going through similar [00:16:00] experiences and how they engage with other, like, psychosis awareness, people that are on social is really, um, Inspiring and awesome, like, to have us kind of join into that, you know, we're not like an individual with lived experience, but sort of represent or a platform for people with lived experience.

And, but connecting with all the other like social media influencers that are people with lived experience was the most unexpected thing. And you realize that it's like so much bigger than, you know, here in New Orleans. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Serena: Yeah. The connect is. Connecting people, right? Cause this experience can be super isolating and I think being able to connect with others, both individually and in community is super cool.

Ashley: Yep. So we admittedly are very late to the podcast world and very late to just recording these, but this timing is perfect to [00:17:00] talk about what's on the horizon in October on October 4th, which is our third annual In My Mind Benefit to raise awareness. For psychosis about psychosis, it would be awesome to have so many people attend, especially people that might listen to this podcast and be local.

But anyway, it's October 4th at Napoleon house, which is a very historic restaurant, the quarter in the French quarter in New Orleans. And we have so many people participating that are patients of ours.

Serena: Yeah, I just, we just had a Zoom meeting today with our patient artists, some of whom are going to be sharing their visual arts, some who are going to be performing and sharing other live artistic endeavors.

And it's going to be super exciting. They're all really pumped to be there and to share and sort of be in community with each other. [00:18:00] Yeah. So if you're listening to this and inspired in any way, shape or form. Check out CalmNola, and you can get details about In My Mind 2024, and there is a link there to buy tickets, and if you can't attend and buy tickets, you can definitely make a donation.

All the donate, all the money raised through this event goes directly to our patients.

Ashley: And like us on social media. That's uh, that's awesome. That's the best thing too.

Serena: Alright, so thank you for tuning in, learning more about Calm and how it's integrated with Epic. We hope you get involved and we hope to see you on October 4th.

Bye! Alright. Until next time, thanks for taking the time to get your reality check. And remember, psychosis is real, so is recovery.

Ashley: If you have enjoyed this episode or found it useful, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts [00:19:00] from and check out the website calmnola. org.