Welcome to the Reality Check podcast. Psychosis is Real, so is Recovery.

On this episode, we speak to the Co-Founders Dr Ashley Weiss and Serena Chaudhry the initial inception and expansion of Calm.

For more information about Clear Answers to Louisiana Mental Health (CALM) and their Early Intervention Psychosis Program (EPIC NOLA) visit the website: www.calmnola.org

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.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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,

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.

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.

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.

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.