Alaska's SPF SIG e-Newsletter

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April 2013

In This Issue

• Calendar of Events
• What Do You Need? (Upcoming survey)
• What’s Happening in Homer?
• Guiding Good Choices (A strategy being used in Fairbanks)
• FY14 Continuing Applications
• Resource: Our Culture is Prevention
• Resource: Make Your Campaign Count – How to Communicate Effectively
• A Few Notes from Our Evaluators

Community Level Instrument (CLI)
Key Informant Interviews
Coalition Survey
Fidelity Assessment
“Active” Status of Strategies Requiring CLI Reporting

• Error Correction
• Next Month’s Newsletter

Calendar of Events

April 30, 2:30 - 4:00 pm
Media Campaigns, Social Marketing, Social Norms is a webinar focusing on the differences in the strategies and ways to develop messages meaningful to our communities and to evaluate these strategies. Register here. In preparation for this workshop, you might want to look at a new resource from our State evaluators, the Strategy Fidelity and Adaptations Worksheet for Social Marketing and Social Norms Campaigns. The evaluation team is in the process of developing similar worksheets for strategies common to multiple grantees.

June 10 - 14
The 30th Annual Rural Providers’ Conference held in Fairbanks is a cultural celebration of the Alaska Native Sobriety Movement. For information and registration go to www.ruralcap.com.

September 17 - 20
Save the dates for the Annual DBH Grantee Conference in Anchorage. Devon Lewis will be sending out updates periodically regarding logistics, including conference space, times and hotel accommodations.

What Do You Need?

In order to assess your training and support needs for the implementation and evaluation phases of this project, your Community Prevention Support Team is coordinating a survey that will be emailed to all coalition members within the next couple of weeks. We will be soliciting your thoughts about the specific information and support needs you anticipate having over the next year. Please help us structure well-defined learning tracks for the next year by completing the survey when it arrives.

What's Happening in Homer?

Train-the-Trainer participants in Homer learn about the effects of alcohol on the developing brain.

By Esther Hammerschlag

HPP’s coalition has broken into committees to further work on next steps and implementation for each of the five selected strategies. With a strong focus on community, strategies and action plans are continuing to evolve as committees discuss next steps about what implementation will look like on a community level. The Positive Community Norms (PCN) model will provide a framework that impacts messaging around all five of the project’s strategies. The PCN committee prioritized underage drinking with a target population of youth for the first media campaign, followed by parents and then adult binge drinkers. Another committee is at work to support development of a youth council that will ultimately focus on supporting development of alcohol-free activities in the community.

A two-day Train the Trainers led by Linda Chamberlain was held in Homer on April 9-10 and focused on adolescent brain development, substance abuse, and ACEs. The training also included information on FASD and its effects on the brain. It was great to connect in person with everyone from the Yakutat team at the training! Homer coalition members that attended the training will give presentations to a variety of community groups and organizations over the next year about what they learned to raise awareness and community readiness.

Guiding Good Choices

By Elizabeth Bridges

The Fairbanks Prevention Coalition has selected the “Guiding Good Choices” workshops to address the contributing factors “alcohol-related family problems” and “lack of parental support” for underage drinking. “Guiding Good Choices” consists of five two-hour sessions usually held over five consecutive weeks. During these sessions, parents learn to teach their children resistance skills, to recognize the importance of creating opportunities for adolescents to have meaningful roles in the family, and to practice techniques for self-control in order to reduce family conflicts. The sessions are interactive and skill-based, with opportunities for parents to practice new skills and receive feedback from workshop leaders and other parents. Video-based vignettes demonstrate parenting skills through the portrayal of a variety of family situations. Participants receive a Family Guide containing family activities, discussion topics, skill-building exercises, and information on positive parenting.

FY14 Continuation Applications

Devon Lewis will be contacting each grantee to schedule a follow-up telephone call to discuss the FY14 Continuation Applications. These meetings will be held sometime during the first week of May and should last from 30-60 minutes.

Resource: Our Culture is Prevention

Elizabeth Bridges (Fairbanks Coalition) recommends Critical Dialogue with Native Youth about Underage Drinking: Our Culture is Prevention. This video is one of 49 related to Underage Drinking on SAMHSA’s YouTube Channel focusing on communicating the message about underage drinking. The video addresses the consequences of underage drinking, the reasons Native youth choose to drink and the way Native cultures and traditions help promote resilience and prevent substance uses. These links are also posted on the Alaska SPF SIG website.

Resource: Make Your Campaign Count - How to Communicate Effectively

Spero Manson (Fairbanks Coalition’s local evaluator) encourages you to view this webinar focusing on media campaigns. Hosted by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, the webinar has information that anyone implementing a media campaign will find useful. The webinar and associated materials are located here. This link is also posted on the Alaska SPF SIG website.

A Few Notes from Our Evaluators

Community Level Instrument (CLI)
Any strategy beginning implementation from April to June 2013 will require a CLI: Part II submission on July 1st. Reminders will be sent out by state evaluators of this upcoming deadline. Grantees should contact the state evaluators if they have any trouble interpreting questions or entering data into the federal database.

Key Informant Interviews
State evaluators have conducted key informant interviews with two individuals from each grantee who were most involved in strategic planning. These interviews along with the feedback from a CPST focus group, led to a report outlining the strengths, challenges and lessons learned during the strategic planning process. The report, to be disseminated soon, provides a series of recommendations to the entire state team and future grantees utilizing the SPF process.

Coalition Survey
State evaluators will be administering the coalition survey in May. Rachel will contact grantees in late April to obtain the most up to date coalition member contact information. The brief survey is designed to gauge the current strength of grantee coalitions, identify areas that may need attention, and determine how coalitions are growing and flourishing over the course of the grant. In addition to the numeric survey items provided at baseline, coalition members now have a chance to write comments at specific points throughout the survey for added usefulness.

Fidelity Assessment
State evaluators will continue to monitor grantee fidelity to the SPF process using the Fidelity Assessment Rubric. State evaluators will use quarterly reports, monthly call notes, data assessment reports, and strategic plans to generate scores for steps 2 and 3 in early May. Results will be shared back with grantee staff over the summer.

“Active” Status of Strategies Requiring CLI Reporting
A question was raised at last week’s Quarterly Cohort Meeting about when does a CLI strategy become “active” and thereby require reporting. The answer is on page 12 of the CLI: Part I & II FAQ’s 1 located on the Resources page of the SPF SIG Website. In short, the answer is any strategy that you do not plan to report data on is not considered active. So, in the case of an educational activity, although you may be meeting and planning the strategy, such preliminary activities aren't reported on in question 163. The strategy is only active when actual trainings are happening. In the case of a community-based process, organizational outreach meetings are reported, so you would count that strategy as active and report on those preparatory efforts.

Error Correction

In our last issue, we congratulated Lisa Ellanna-Stickling, Nome’s SPF-SIG Project Director, for being selected as the UAA Rural Development Student of the Year! She is actually a student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Sorry for “relocating” you, Lisa!

Next Month’s Newsletter

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this newsletter. Please send any information you would like to share in the next newsletter to Arlene Wilson (arlene@agnewbeck.com). We appreciate your contributions!