Progress 07/30/23 to 07/29/24

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience of the Colorado AgrAbility Project is farmers, ranchers, agricultural workers, their families as well as workers in adjacent industries supporting agriculture that have been affected by injuries, long-term illnesses, disabilities, behavioral health concerns or other barriers inhibiting their ability to work. While we serve all individuals who are in the target audience specified above we are especially working to target individuals from the following demographic groups: Hispanic - in this reporting period we reached 8 with direct services (this does not include workshop attendance or other outreach) Native Americans-in this reporting period we reached 1with direct services (this does not include workshop attendance or other outreach) Veterans -in this reporting period we reached 33with direct services (this does not include workshop attendance or other outreach) Women -in this reporting period we reached 27with direct services (this does not include workshop attendance or other outreach) Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This year, Candiss Leathers provided a large amount of one-on-one mentoring to our newest Rural Rehabilitation Specialist Ashley Buchanan. She has been working with Ashley to learn all aspects of the position and has both allowed Ashley to shadow her on visits and then shadowed Ashley on visits providing constructive feedback after the visits. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Our main method for dissemination of results and information has been our website:https://agrability.colostate.edu/ We are currently working to improve our website and the resources available on the webpage. Over the coming year we will have a much more complete webpage and will do a better job being able to disseminate our results and information to communities of interest. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue to work with clients and work towards each of these goals next year as we have done this year. One particular challenge that we will face next year is the retirement of Candiss Leathers. Candy has been an extremely valuable team leader and her loss is going to really be felt in this coming year. In addition, we also lost Jim Craig who was one of our Rural Rehabilitation Specialists. Candy has been diligently working to get Ashley up to speed, but we still have one Rural Rehabilitation Specialist position open. We have been advertising this position for months and have not had any qualified candidates apply. So we start out this next year down one Rural Rehabilitation specialist and the one full time specialist is very new. Candy has graciously agreed to continue to consult with the project on a part time basis and help to train the new individual once they are hired. We are concerned with only one specialist, who is very new to the position, we may struggle to reach as many clients as we traditionally have in the next year. Our focus in this coming year is training and to build back up a strong team to continue to serve our clients.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Activity 1.a The Colorado AgrAbilty project had a total of 115 clients this year. Colorado AgrAbility is one of 17 states that has been conducting a 16-year Quality of Life (QOL) study to determine whether AgrAbility clients increase their QOL and independent living levels. Some highlights from the results are: -77.4% (N = 216/279) AgrAbility clients improved their overall QOL levels. -72.8% (N = 193/265) AgrAbility clients reduced their physical symptoms levels. -64.3% (N = 160/249) AgrAbility clients improved their physical well-being levels -67.8% (N = 183/270) AgrAbility clients improved their psychological well-being levels. -74.9% (N = 203/271) AgrAbility clients improved their existential well-being levels. -68.6% (N = 205/299) AgrAbility clients reported improving all parts of their life--physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and financial between when they began and completed their work with AgrAbility. 60.6% (n = 80/132) reported that they strongly agreed or agreed that their involvement with AgrAbility improved their household income. Activity 1.b In this grant cycle, we had a goal to expand our services to the following target groups Native Americans - Our goal for year 2 of the project was to serve 2 Native American clients, we ended up serving 1 this year. We are continuing to work on our relationships with Colorado Tribal groups. Hispanic - Our goal for year 2 of the project was to serve 2 hispanic clients, we ended up serving 8 hispanic clients. Veteran - Our goal for year 2 of the project was to serve 24 veteran clients, we ended up serving 33 veteran clients. Women - Our goal for year 2 of the project was to serve 30 women clients, we ended up serving 27 women clients. Activity 2.a. In 2024, we held three Winter Workshops in Kremmling (8 participants), Fort Morgan (9 participants), and Rocky Ford (8 participants). The workshops focused on Aging in Agriculture and included an introduction to CAP and its associated resources.Participants learned about farm safety strategies/tools and techniques to remain independent within ag. Additionally conversations were led by AgrAbility Behavioral Health Specialists surrounding emotional well-being, how to get the most out of your "mental engine" and strategies for stress management.representatives from the Colorado Division of Vocational Rehabilitation and community health agencies (e.g., Colorado Coffee Break Project, County Extension representative, etc.) were also present at the workshops. Activity 2.b. In 2024, AgrAbility mentored four Colorado State University graduate-level students. Two Doctorate of Occupational Therapy students completed their internships under Candiss Leathers, AgrAbility Rehabilitation Specialist. Doing so, they completed farm/ranch site visits and assessments for new AgrAbility clients. The students were particularly inspired by Candy's ability to build meaningful relationships with diverse clients. Read more about the student's experience on the CAP website. A Masters of Public Health/Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine student completed her practicum project with AgrAbility by supporting our communications efforts. The student developed a social media calendar that highlights upcoming AgrAbility and partner events, ag-safety/disability awareness information, and shares stories of past clients. This effort has helped CAP further develop our repository of impact stories. Activity 2.c. We have made great strides in this area. AgrAbility has become more integrated with CSU Extension and is now seen as an integral part and signature program within Health Extension. Some evidence of this is increased engagement and referrals by Extension staff as well as the integration of a field-based Extension professional on our Advisory Committee. We will continue to build on these relationships. In addition, we recently conducted a survey of Extension staff asking them about their knowledge of AgrAbility and how they engage with the project. Some highlights from this study: Most respondents were at least somewhat knowledgeable of AgrAbility services (50% have made referrals to AgrAbility before). Respondents would like materials that provide additional information about AgrAbility to share with community members, etc. Respondents ranked Ag-Stress, Assistive Technology demonstrations, and education about the process and steps to work with AgrAbility as the areas they are most interested in learning more about Activity 2.d. Since June 2023, CAP's four Behavioral Health Specialists have worked across Colorado to identify localized needs and develop suitable programs and resources that promote holistic well-being. Over 1,500 agriculture and rural community members received behavioral health education/navigation, 1 on 1 stress management support, or resources from CAP in 2023. Additionally, CAP co-developed LandLogic, a novel Cognitive Behavioral Therapy adaptation specifically designed to serve agricultural populations. LandLogic provides "agri-cultural" responsiveness training to help clinical providers understand the unique stressors and strengths within ag populations and provides evidence-based tools and interventions to support rural clients. Since 2022, 200+ mental health providers have received the LandLogic training and 100% of participants surveyed, who have mostly agricultural clients, agreed they would apply the LandLogic training to their practice. Further, CAP partnered with Colorado Agriculture Addiction and Mental Health Program (CAAMHP), to create LEGACY, a documentary developed to to decrease mental health stigma and increase utilization of support resources among ag populations. Activity 3.a. Due to outside funding, we were fortunate enough to be able to send 9 Colorado AgrAbility team members to the National AgrAbility conference and we presented in sessions on the following topics: Economic Impacts of AgrAbility Help Us Help You Survey to identify Quality of Life outcomes of AgrAbility clients Behavioral Health supports for agricultural populations Our Co-Director continues to lead the NAP evaluation team and the Quality of Life Study. We are also working on an Economic Impact of AgrAbility Study and creating an advisory committee for this study. Activity 3.b We have developed a one-page document which describes the roles and responsibilities to clarify expectations with our Advisory Committee members. This year we have re-imagined our advisory committee composition and have invited new members to the team. Our advisory committee met 2 times this year and provided valuable feedback in a variety of areas. Activity 4.a In 2024, CAP developed new brochures and 1-page handouts to ensure updated information is available to partners and the general public. CAP staff attended the several agriculture-related conferences, the Colorado Cattlemen's Conference, 8+ county fairs, the state fair, among other events to market our services. CAP has developed a social media presence on Instagram and Facebook and is working with CSU Office of Engagement and Extension Marketing and Communications to further build out our public presence. With the help of a graduate student intern, CAP has developed a social media calendar through December 2024, constituents of relevant content that promotes CAP's services, events, and community impacts. Additionally, CAP is developing a repository of short-form videos that highlight the success stories of past AgrAbility clients. These videos will be available on our website and social media platforms. Our website received several revisions over the course of the year to ensure relevance/accuracy of information.? CAP created a 2024 Behavioral Health Impact Report to summarize our influence across the state. View the impact report on our website: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://agrability.colostate.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/23-24-AgrAbility-Impact-Report_FINAL.pdf

Publications

Progress 07/30/22 to 07/29/23

Outputs
Target Audience:The Colorado AgrAbility Project (CAP) serves Colorado Farmers and Ranchers with information and on-site visits. This year we updated our view of what clients we could serve to be the broader agricultural/rural workers who support agriculture, using the following definition: "All farmers, ranchers, agricultural workers, and members of their families are eligible to receive AgrAbility services. This includes both seasonal and migrant farm workers. Other occupations that have been served include loggers, fishermen, gardeners, lawn maintenance personnel, Christmas tree growers, truckers, agricultural implement service technicians, and wood workers" Within this audience we made extra efforts to reach out an support individuals from the following audiencesNative Americans, Hispanic/farm worker populations, veterans and women. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Over the last year, we have grown our team from 6 to 11 team members. As AgrAbility grows it has been important for us to provide professional development opporutunities for our team. One area that we have focused is to make sure everyone on the team is Mental Health First Aid trained as well as other agricultural based trainings such as COMET (Changing Our Mental and Emotional Trajectory). Going forward we have carved out a budget from our state appropriated funds for team members to use for professional development. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have disseminated our results to our communities of interest and we continue to improve our ability to reach these audiences. Our new AgrAbility coordinator is developing a marketing strategy that includes our involvement in relevant social media platforms and better utilization of our new website to communicate the results of our efforts. In addition, we are working to get our outputs translated into Spanish, and currently our website can be viewed in Spanish or English. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the coming year we plan to continue the momentum we have created in this past year as evidenced by the activities outlined in the previous section. The lessons we learned in our Spanish listening session and from conversations with New Mexico AgrAbility will allow us to continue to expand our service offerings to our target populations. We also will begin holding meetings with other SRAP's who have identified interest in an AgrAbility Economic Impact study to begin framing the evaluation materials. Our team is growing from 5 at the beginning of this grant cycle to a total of 11starting July 5th due to leveraging outside dollars for the AgrAbility program. In this coming year we are going to make the most of this opportunity to best serve our rural communities.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: Direct Assistance Activity 1.a - Deliver onsite services We have had a successfulyear providing on-site and follow-up services to both new and existing CAP clients.Table 1 below contains more information on the number of clients we served up to 3/31/23. We are also on track with service to our targeted audiences of Hispanic, Veteran, Native Americans and women. Table 1: Total, New and Returning Clients, with Actual Number of Total CAP Clients from Targeted Groups FY 7/30/22-11/30/22 7/30/22-3/31/23 Total # Clients 80 87 # New 7 14 # Returning 73 73 Total #Native American 1 1 Total # Hispanic 3 5 Total # Veterans 20 22 Total # Women 19 21 Closed 10 18 A directoutcome of CAP direct assistance activities are increases in the quality of life of our clients. Colorado AgrAbility is one of 17 states that is conducting a 16-year Quality of Life (QOL) study to determine whether AgrAbility clients increase their QOL and Independent Living and Working levels (ILW). Here are the most recent findings from the QOL study related to AgrAbility clients: -77.4% (N= 216/279)clients improved their overall QOL levels. -72.8% (N= 193/265) clients reduced their physical symptoms levels. -64.3% (N= 160/249)clients improved their physical well-being levels -67.8% (N= 183/270)clients improved their psychological well-being levels. -74.9% (N= 203/271)clients improved their existential well-being levels. -68.4% (N= 184/269)clients improved their support levels. -79.3% (N= 230/290)clients improved their overall ILW levels. -68.6% (N= 205/299)clients reported improving all parts of their life--physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and financial between when they began and completed their work with AgrAbility. Activity 1.b Continue to expand our services to women and veteran farmers and implement a strategy to build relationships and increase our Hispanic and Native American CAP clientele. Evidence of success in this area can be seen in Table 1. In addition, this year we held a Spanish focusedwinter workshop/listening session that helped us create networks with target groups as well as learn more about the needs of this target population. We have been in discussions with the New Mexico AgrAbility project on taking a more regional approach when working with tribal clients. Often tribal land cross state boundaries and working with our neighboring AgrAbility project will allow us to better serve the needs of this population. Objective 2: Education -CAP's long-term investment strategy. Activity 2.a -provide winter workshops with research-based information and education. In 2023 CAP provided five winter workshopsJanuary 11 (Grand Junction), February 10 (Colorado Springs), February 17 (Sterling), February 23 (Pierce), and March 1 (Limon). We were able to get more marketing from Colorado State University Extension (one example can be found here: https://engagement.source.colostate.edu/free-agrability-workshops-support-colorado-agricultural-communities/). The topics covered in each of the workshops were as follows: An introduction to Colorado AgrAbility, Ergonomic safety and health, PPE best practices, Drought and the Colorado River, and resiliency and stress management. Quotes from WW participants:"the depth of detail - really excellent balance of high-level information. Easy to digest and understand." "very good presenters and information" "This program is fantastic for individuals with disabilities." "The presenters were so engaging!" "I liked the diversity of programming. I appreciate the amount of experience and knowledge shared" We had a total of 96 registrants who attended including 25 farmers and ranchers and 71 professionals. Fifty-one workshop participants completed and returned "Help Us Help You" evaluations following their participation in the workshops for a 53% (n = 51/96) response rate. Some highlights: As a direct result of participating in this AgrAbility program, my knowledge increased. Scale from 1 - 9 very little tovery much, average score was 8.1. I plan to use the information presented in this program. The scale was from 1 - 9 not at all to a lot the average score was 7.8 An additional output from the winter workshops was that because of the workshop we were able to assist a participant to write a successful $10,000 LOR field work grant (http://www.lorfoundation.org/field-work/) Activity 2.b - Mentor students each year of the project This year the AgrAbility team is currently serving the mentorship teams of two separate Colorado State University Extension Interns. Activity 2.c. - Increase internal education with Colorado State University Extension about CAP. We are making huge strides in this area.Extension professionals turned out at our Winter Workshops in force this year and we have been integrating ourselves into the Colorado State University Extension Rural Health Team as well as the CSU Community Development PRU. We have already seen rewards from this partnership and expect them to only increase in the future. For Example, we were asked to facilitate a COMET training for new Extension employees. Activity 2.d - Seek non-NIFA supplement funds to expand the programs work in behavioral health. We have been fortunate enough to receive a state appropriation to serve our rural communities related to behavioral health. We currently have one state level behavioral health specialist (the first for Colorado State University) and on July 5th we are hiring three regional behavioral health specialists to serve in rural areas. In addition, we have been able to hire a marketing coordinator to help us communicate our story. We look forward to the future as Colorado AgrAbility expands our capacity to serve the behavioral health needs of our rural communities. Objective 3: Networking - touches all other aspects of what we do. Activity 3.a. Enhance relationships with NAP Colorado has prided ourselves on our good relationship with NAP and our continued partnership. This year we sent 6 team members to the National Conference and several team members volunteered to help with the event. One team member, Candiss Leathers, was awarding the prestigious ground breaker award. We also had a team member travel to and assist in Kansas City. We have led the National AgrAbility quality of life survey and continue to do so and are working on putting together a team to frame an Economic Impact Study to communicate the economic impacts of the programs to help seek future funding for this important USDA program. Our team also created a factsheet for the national program on important safety considerations. Activity 3.b. - Increase the effectiveness of our advisory committee This year werecreated the CAP advisory committee. We created several informational documents and training materials for our advisory committee. In addition, we strategically selected members for the committee and held our first new advisory committee meeting inJune. Activity 3.c. - Continue to strengthen the relationship between CAP and Colorado DVR One of our new Advisory Committee members is from DVR and at our first advisory committee meeting he gave us a presentation that was very helpful for both the team and advisory committee. Objective 4: CAP's marketing activitiesto increase awareness of AgrAbility and generate referrals. Our new AgrAbility coordinator has been updating all our materials and we have created a marketing sub-committee of AgrAbility team members to work on this revamp.One of the larger marketing activities we conducted in this period was to update our website. Our old website was not being updated with new materials, difficult to navigate and not visually appealing. We have completely recreated our website and have received significant positive feedback on the new site.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Submitted Year Published: 2023 Citation: Leathers, C.; Fetsch, R., Sanchez, J., Craig, J. and Reznicek, C. AgrAbility Safety Considerations for On-Site Visits with Farm and Ranch Families. Colorado State University AgrAbility,May 17 2023