Art or Magic? Creating Community Awareness

There's no real magic involved with creating community awareness - it's an art form that takes a lot of good planning and hard work. Diane Patterson, project director of the Yakima, WA Targeted Capacity Grant (TCE) housed at Children's Village, and her talented colleagues planned a state-wide prevention/early intervention forum for state and local stakeholders that featured a presentation by Dr. David Olds developer of the Nurse Family Partnership (NFP), an evidence-based intervention. With Dr. Olds' assistance, the forum became a launching pad for four additional community awareness opportunities: a press conference, a hospital grand rounds presentation, a trustees meeting and a meeting with Washington State 's other NFP grantees. In just two days, the prevention/early intervention story was told to state legislators, state and county health administrators, medical practitioners (the grant's referral base), trustees/board members and administrators of partner organizations, and the media.

TCE grantees are required to collaborate with developers of the evidence based interventions they choose to implement. The benefits of this alliance are often significant. For example, The Children's Village has received tremendous ongoing support from the national office of the Nurse-Family Partnership. In this situation, it was important for Yakima to conduct a Prevention/Early Intervention educational forum to raise awareness within Washington State for future funding. The national office of NFP was a willing partner from the beginning. It was a perfect opportunity to reinforce the science and the practice of EBIs within the state.

Over an eight-month planning process, the Children's Village staff recruited an array of forum co-sponsors. Two very important sponsors were the other SAMHSA grantees located in Yakima - Educational Service District 105 (Safe Schools/Healthy Students) and Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic (Youth Violence Prevention Program). Others sponsors included the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, Region 2 Children's Services, Central Washington Comprehensive Mental Health, Yakima Neighborhood Health Services, Enterprise for Progress in the Community, Memorial Foundation and Yakima County Community Services.

As plans for the forum were under way the Washington Institute for Public Policy published its Washington State Cost & Benefit Research Report which analyzed the cost/benefit of many of the EBIs implemented in the state including NFP and Multi-Systemic Therapy (the YVPP Yakima grantee is using this EBI). The results of the report were very positive for both EBIs. Diane seized on the opportunity and called one of the lead authors, Steve Aos, and invited him to present at the forum. Dr. Aos agreed to participate and present the institute's findings. The Prevention/Early Intervention Forum for Children and Youth became an important event for the entire state. Stakeholders gained insight into the value, as well as the science and practice of evidence based interventions from many angles, including economic.

With the forum content and platform in place, Diane and her colleagues looked for other ways to leverage Dr. Olds' visit to Yakima. Their plan quickly took shape and included a grand rounds presentation, a press conference, a meeting with trustees/board members and administrators of partner organizations and a meeting with other NFP implementers from across the state.

All the thoughtful planning paid off for Diane and her colleagues. The forum drew over a hundred participants from across the state including three state legislators and representatives from the state mental health and juvenile justice divisions. The press conference yielded local and state coverage. The Grand rounds presentation was well received as was the trustees meeting - important sources for referrals and future funding.

Diane offers the following tips for other grantees who are organizing community education forums

• Relationships at the state level take time and nurturing. Offer your expertise on mutual topics of interest. Insight into innovative approaches can be very helpful to state legislators and administrators and establishes trust for future projects such as the forum.
• Don't be scared to pick up the phone and ask for what you need - Diane had never spoken to Steve Aos before but once she explained the forum's content and objectives, he was thrilled to participate.
• Create very clear goals for each event/opportunity. Diane and her colleagues set goals and then Vickie Ybarra, the grant's evaluator, created an evaluation plan to measure their performance against each of the goals. At the end of the event, they had a straightforward evidence of the success of their efforts.
• Involve your local partners in the planning process and programmed events so that all can share in the benefits of community education and awareness.
• And, most important, leverage every opportunity to meet multiple objectives.

Visit the Nurse Family Partnership Web site for more information.