Culturallyrelevant outreach: Making inroads to make a difference

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Culturally-relevant outreach Making in-roads to
make a difference

• AnnMaria De Mars, Ph.D.
• The Julia Training Institute
• www.thejuliagroup.com

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Background

• Dr. De Mars has worked on reservations in the
  Great Plains since 1990, as an evaluator,
  researcher, tribal college faculty member and
  development officer. Most recently, as
  vice-president of Spirit Lake Consulting, Inc.
  her projects focused on the design, development
  and testing of computer-integrated training for
  people with disabilities and their families.

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What is outreach?

• Outreach is an effort to connect ideas or
  practices to the efforts of other organizations,
  groups, specific audiences or the general public
  Outreach often takes on an educational component
  (i.e., the dissemination of ideas)
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outreach

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SLC Outreach Research

• Reasons outreach fails
• Methods by which potential consumers receive
  information
• Applying research results to design effective
  outreach

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Disability Access RUSH

• Research on Getting Information to People with
  Disabilities and Their Families

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Ways that outreach efforts can fail

• Your audience doesnt even know your program
  exists the information never got to them
• The goals they PERCEIVE your program to have
  dont matter to them
• They support your program goals but dont believe
  the particular activity has any relevance for
  them.
• Your program is not a priority. They consider
  other things they could be doing more important
  or desirable.
• They dont have the resources they need to become
  involved, e.g., no ride, no child care.

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The three parts of DA- RUSH

• Qualitative Analysis -In person interviews with
  thirty caregivers, document review
• Information Use Survey - surveyed hundreds of
  individuals with disabilities and their families
  living on reservations
• Effectiveness study of training on Individualized
  Education Plans

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Qualitative Analysis - What people think about
your program
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• Were probably the least important thing on an
  Indians mind.
• Dr. Erich Longies comments at the end of a
  year-long project on how families of people with
  disabilities obtain information.

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Your Program is not a Priority

• They consider other things they could be doing
  more important or desirable

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A real-life example

• Pre-meeting assessment
• We look forward to seeing you at the program
  meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to
  provide local _____ programs with an overview of
  research-based practices that promote young
  childrens literacy growth and development as a
  step for creating program improvement plans to
  increase the quality of _____ services.

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Why would a parent want to leave her baby at home
and come to your meeting?
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Effective outreach

• Is approached from the point of view of benefit
  to the consumer, not the program

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Consumer Focus

• On March 25th our staff will meet to choose a new
  program for teaching reading to your children.
  Wed really be interested in hearing your
  opinion on which of the activities and stories
  offered seem best for your child.
• All parents are welcome to attend. Refreshments
  will be served. Child care will be provided on
  site OR (even better) your children can take part
  in story hour and other reading activities.
  Please come for a fun and educational experience
  for the whole family.

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Are these worthwhile goals?

• Providing early intervention for children with
  developmental delays
• Helping people with disabilities get jobs
• Modifying classrooms to give children with
  disabilities a better education

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Whose job is it?

• Feeding my children is a worthwhile goal but the
  people at McDonalds dont expect me to get
  behind the counter and sweep floors or flip
  hamburgers

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Indian people lead busy lives

• We may assume we know best and our priorities
  should be the priorities of the people we intend
  to serve but
• They have jobs
• Children
• Other relatives

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Recognize Diversity!

• There is diversity both among AND within
  reservations
• Some people are extremely busy professionals
• Other people have personal issues and problems
  that limit their ability to get through the day
• And there is everyone in-between

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What is your objective?

• Is it that people SHOULD have the same goals as
  you?
• Is it that people SHOULD get their own
  transportation, they SHOULD read the school
  newsletter and know what is going on, they SHOULD
  not expect someone else to arrange child care?
• Sometimes staff attitudinal barriers interfere
  with designing an effective outreach program

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Learned Helplessness

• I am unable to come because
• I dont have a ride
• There is no one to watch my kids
• I need to make dinner for my family
• I cant afford money for gas
• My kids dont bring the newsletters home
• Recognizing that some of your potential consumers
  will fit this profile and making it as easy as
  possible for them to receive your information
  should increase the effectiveness of your
  outreach program

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How People Get Information

• Assumptions versus reality

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• Disability programs spend millions of dollars
  creating newsletters, flyers, public service
  announcements and other efforts to reach people
  with disabilities and their parents. Still,
  involvement in IEPs remains low, tribal
  vocational rehabilitation operates below
  capacity.
• How much of the information created ever reaches
  its intended participants?

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What we hear from programs

• Our program has been here ten years, everyone
  knows about us.
• There isnt much to see in a town this small but
  what you hear makes up for it. That saying
  describes our community, everyone knows all about
  everyone elses business, including our program.

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What We Hear from Consumers

• Question Are you aware of any programs that
  provide services for people with disabilities?
• Answer No.
• Interviewer Have you ever looked for
  information on your sons disability on your
  own?
• Answer Yeah ( on the) Internet.

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What We Hear from Consumers

• Interviewer So,who provided you most of the
  information about your sons disability?
• Answer Myself, actually. I looked up
  information on the Internet. I tried talking to
  his therapists. They were really vague on what
  they would give me information they would give
  me.

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What We Hear from Consumers

• Question Are you aware of any programs that
  provide services for people with disabilities?
• Answer Ive seen advertisements like AID, Inc.
  Different associations like that, but as for
  knowing any information, I really dont really
  know very much about them.

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What We Hear from Consumers

• Question Are you aware on any programs that
  provide services to people with disabilities?
• Answer Well I never had any. I mean the only
  thing we had was a nurse who would come once or
  twice a week to do his blood pressure and he had
  to have shots twice a week.
• Question So where did you get information about
  those services?
• Answer the doctor said we should have a nurse
  come in every week. So when we talked to Medicaid
  they approved it.

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Do consumers know your program exists?

• Disability Access - RUSH
• Information Use Survey

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Sample Recruitment

• Door to door on reservations
• At Pow-wows
• In training workshops

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Sample Demographics
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Survey of People with Disabilities and their
families living on Great Plains reservations
(N305)
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Media Usage on Reservations
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Newsletters Read on Reservations
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Flyers as Information Sources
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Key Points on Information Use

• Few organizations targeting tribal members use
  websites or email, yet this is a cost-effective
  way to reach a substantial number
• The correlation between print and electronic
  sources is non-significant, indicating that for
  many electronic messages are a reminder of
  information seen in print and for others these
  are the only sources
• We are still completely missing some people
  approximately 16 of those surveyed neither read
  newsletters NOR read flyers posted NOR read email
  NOR use the Internet .

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How Outreach Can Work
AN EXAMPLE FROM TRAINING PARENTS ON THEIR ROLE
IN THE INDIVIDUALIZED EDUCATION PLAN
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Research Based

• Based on results of the first two components of
  the RUSH project, we designed an outreach program
  that used multiple media radio, flyers posted in
  public places, newspaper ads, website and
  electronic mailing list announcements

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Guaranteeing Special Education Rights

• Designed for Native Americans with disabilities
  and their families
• Needs and constraints of reservation communities
  were integral to the design
• Follows a computer-integrated format

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Consumer Needs Focus

• Limited chance to meet other families in similar
  situations, limited experience with disabilities
• When he was nine months old he was like a newborn
  child yet. And he started having what I didnt
  know at the time was a seizure. Before that I
  never even knew that there were people that were
  born with disabilities like this

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Consumer Needs Focus

• The nearest university library with extensive
  information on disabilities is about a three- to
  four-hour round trip. That is when there is no
  ice or snow on the roads and no flooding. When
  there is, forget it.

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Consumer Focus

• Transportation is provided as the reservations
  dont have public transit
• Lunch and coffee breaks are provided
• Child care is provided
• Each parent receives a 50 stipend for attendance
  since very few can afford to take two days off
  work without pay

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Four Training Components

• Course Modules
• Virtual Library
• Commons Area
• On-site workshops

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Guaranteeing Special Education Rights
Individualized Education Planshttp//www.spiritl
akeconsulting.com/IEP/

• Funded by a National Institute of Disability
  Rehabilitation Research
• U.S. Department Education Grant
• to Spirit Lake Consulting, Inc.

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Purpose of Training

• Educate parents on special education rights
• Give step-by-step instruction on preparing for
  evaluation, access to student records, IEP
  meetings, due process hearings, and other special
  education meetings
• Provide basic training on how to get the services
  you need from school districts
• Train parents to locate special education
  materials on website or CD-ROM to meet future
  needs

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Results
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Study Participants(N207)
Variable Gender Female 73 Enrolled
Tribal Member 90 Mean S.D. Age 36.0 13.9
Years of Education 11.0 2.8
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Recruitment Methods

• Announcement on website
• Emailed to electronic mailing list
• Flyers in tribal administration building,schools,
  casino
• Personal contacts to school and agency personnel
• Radio and newspaper ads

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Three Conditions, to Accommodate Community Needs

• Three-hour training in computer labs, using
  website with lecture by trainer
• Three-hour lecture by trainer using PowerPoint,
  no opportunity for using computers
• Ninety minute presentation in computer lab

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CHANGE IN TEST SCORES BY TYPE OF TRAINING
p lt .0001
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Conclusions

• Combination of media approaches and personal
  contacts to key personnel was related to a higher
  participation rate than generally reported
• Efforts to accommodate community members needs
  may relate to higher participation and
  effectiveness, but there is a limit to how much
  accommodation can be made before the program
  loses its effectiveness