Progress 09/15/23 to 09/14/24

Outputs
Target Audience:This project seeks to connect and train service providers across the Northeast to address the mental health needs of farmers, ranchers, and farmworkers therein. The Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network in the Northeast (FRSAN-NE) recognizes the unique challenges faced by migrant farmworkers, young farmers, and socially disadvantaged farmers, particularly Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) farmers. As such, these groups constitute the project's target audience. Our project aims to expand service provision to this target audience by creating a Network that resources service providers working within these communities as well as building capacity of all service providers in the region to approach their work with a framework of inclusion and accessibility. The Network's efforts to engage service providers working directly with this audience include regular meetings, trainings, an online clearinghouse, and opportunities for leadership within Working Groups and Cohorts. In addition, our budget allocates resources to make services more accessible to our target population, including: stipends for farmers to participate in annual trainings, childcare services and interpretation services provided for Network sessions, translation of critical stress assistance resources and materials developed by FRSAN-NE or beyond; a Spanish-speaking farmer hotline; and funding for a BIPOC cohort and a farmworker cohort in the Network. The FRSAN-NE established a 10-farmer member Farmer Advisory Board as an accountability mechanism for the Network's commitment to our defined target population. This Farmer Advisory Board represents migrant farmworkers, young farmers, and BIPOC farmers in the region and ensures that the Network reflects and addresses farmer stress and is accessible and appropriate (i.e. culturally, ethnically, racially, linguistically, and socio-economically sensitive). The FRSAN-NE structure also constitutes an Advisory Team responsible for collaboratively designing, coordinating, administering, and evaluating the project; this group is accountable to the Farmer Advisory Board and our project goals. The Advisory Team is composed of representatives from the six grant recipient organizations: Farm Aid, Farm First Vermont, Migrant Clinicians Network, National Young Farmers Coalition, Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust, and University of Maine Cooperative Extension. After the 2019-2020 grant, the Advisory Team expanded in 2021 to include Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust (NEFOC) and the Migrant Clinician's Network (MCN); these partners bring insights and expertise in providing comprehensive stress assistance to BIPOC growers and migrant farmworkers. With NEFOC's and MCN's leadership, the Advisory Team ensures that the Network's structure, training, outreach strategies, and resources are culturally competent in reaching socially marginalized farm audiences in the Northeast. Changes/Problems:Activity 1.8 As we move out of the COVID era, we are seeing some continued fatigue in trying to engage so many partners and participants virtually. (Activity 1.8) aimed to maintain an online platform to facilitate network communication. Even though our overall network engagement continues to be high, this specific kind of technology is not being met with the same enthusiasm. We are in the process of assessing more fully the reasons behind the ineffectiveness of this tool in order to inform our overall engagement strategy. Personnel The National Young Farmers Coalition (Young Farmers), experienced some significant staffing turnover, with the FRSAN Director, Jac Wypler, and the Cultivemos Associate Director, Leslie Rodriguez, resigning in July 2024. This left the project under-capacity as we worked to rehire for these positions. During this interim period while Young Farmers rehires, Katherine Un, Co-Executive Director and Aviva Paley, Deputy Director have provided additional oversight and coordination support on the grant and Cultivemos team. This lower capacity has delayed some key projects, including momentarily pausing our BIPOC circles offering (Activity 1.7), delaying fixes to our website challenges (Activity 3.3) and delaying our data collection and evaluation efforts (Activity 4.1). We are hiring to address our personnel shortages and have requested a NCE to complete these key projects. Despite these staffing changes we have delivered or exceeded every other activity. We have already begun addressing the delayed areas and are well underway to complete these activities by the end of the NCE. Shared Leadership The Cultivemos Program has piloted creative governance models that work towards having farmer-led programmingand shared oversight between multiple partners. These governance models are still a work in progress, as the network still faces issues with siloing between partners or governing bodies, or an uneven distribution in work or decision making. In the year ahead we aim to address some of these concerns by collaboratively updating the governance and decision making structures to improve collaboration and shared ownership. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Training Landscape Cultivemos has provided 20training sessions this grant period reaching over 180 farmers. The majority of our training sessions (13) supported farmers, farmer workers, and service providers alike in building community to address mental health. Community is recognized as a key factor in addressing mental health as our communities can be a source of isolation, stress, and discrimination at the same time as they could be a resource and major factor of resilience. We provided training sessions (4) specifically for a mental health service provider audience to improve understanding and skills around culturally competent mental health service provision. We provided training sessions (3) focused on evidence-based tools and skills to identify and take first steps in addressing a mental health crisis. These are training sessions that must be provided regularly and in a variety of situations so that our target communities may easily recall the necessary information in a time of crisis. In addition to training sessions, we maintain cohorts (16) that facilitate peer-to-peer, on-going professional development for service providers. Each cohort focuses on a specific topic of learning such as communication or legal challenges in agriculture. Differentiation Cultivemos designs training sessions through careful differentiation. Pedagogical differentiation has been shown to have a significant impact on learning outcomes. Differentiation is that much more critical when serving Black, Indigenous, and more People of Color (BIPOC) communities, given that the evidence-base used to develop mainstream products often does not sample a diverse audience. Through our stakeholder-led needs assessments, we are able to devise training methods that specifically match each target population and attend to their needs for optimal learning. Our P.O.U.R. training offers a strong example of differentiation. Our Farmer Advisory Board, composed of community members who are farmers and farmworkers at the same time as being mental health service providers identified a need for training on accessibility. While identifying this need, they also identified improved learning outcomes for the specific group of service providers they wished to support with small group, discussion-based formats rather than receiving information as a presentation. The subsequent P.O.U.R. training was kept relatively small in attendance and offered an extensive open questions and answers section. Equity, Inclusion & Accessibility Cultivemos recognizes the unique challenges faced by migrant farmworkers, young farmers, and socially disadvantaged farmers, particularly Black, Indigenous, and more People of Color (BIPOC) farmers and farmworkers and serves BIPOC farmers and farmworkers as our target audience. All of our training sessions, no matter the specific topic, prioritize building skills and understanding around equity, inclusion and accessibility. Evaluation and Outcomes Cultivemos assesses the effectiveness of our training sessions through regular surveying. We aim to complete the evaluation of our training sessions through the next reporting period. We aim to also develop key improvements to our evaluation systems such as providing evaluation Standard Operating Procedures for trainers to improve the precision of our data collection as well as implementing new data collection strategies specifically tailored to measuring training outcomes with socially disadvantaged communities. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Dissemination efforts to the following audiences include: 1) Private to Network Members: Quarterly Network Calls, hosted in Spanish and English with simultaneous live interpretation and live text translation. 2) Open Resources: Resource Clearinghouse, also known as Farmer Resource Network (https://farmaid.my.site.com/FRN/s/) Farm Aid's website landing page for Cultivemos containing links to Network resources (https://www.farmaid.org/our-work/resources-for-farmers/cultivemos-the-network-for-farmer-well-being/) Cultivemos youtube channel containing trainings products from Network-funded projects, see (Activity 3.1) and (3.3) (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAffImJvhjTlQVgIXv9w8FQ) Legal Cohort Cultivemos youtube channel containing trainings products from Network-funded projects (https://www.youtube.com/@LegalCohortCultivemos) Cultivemos microsite (https://www.cultivemos.org/), a Spanish and English bilingual homepage with the Cultivemos branding to support the communications campaign National Young Farmers Coalition's website landing page to redirect to the above new microsite (https://www.youngfarmers.org/cultivemos/) Printed materials with Cultivemos logo, branding, and messaging delivered to farmers and farmworkers as part of the communications campaign which have been distributed in the mail to Network Members as well as distributed at in-person events such as the Disability and Agriculture Conference, see (Activity 2.4). This collateral includes: 160 magnets (80 in ENG and 80 in ESP) 400 postcards (200 in ENG and 200 in ESP) 160 posters (80 ENG and 80 ESP) Quarterly Newsletters highlighting upcoming trainings, new resources, and relevant regional events, sent to Network Members, subscribers, and available on the microsite. Available in Spanish and English. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? We requested a No Cost Extension (NCE) of the current grant. Along with continuing to deliver on all activities to the high standard that we have demonstrated throughout this report, we will utilize the extension to focus on improving and completing our work in specific activity areas below by September 14, 2025. The National Young Farmers Coalition (Young Farmers), experienced some significant staffing turnover this grant period. Due to this staffing change, we still need to complete our usual data collection processes (Activity 4.1). In the next reporting period, we also aim to invest significantly in improvements to our evaluation system. Cultivemos is unique in our stakeholder-driven approach to addressing the mental health of socially disadvantaged communities. With that we aim to go beyond the traditional methods for measuring mental health outcomes (e.g., reach measurements and psychometric surveys) and contribute significantly to the data- and evidence-base on culturally, ethnically, linguistically and accessibility-appropriate mental health services approaches and outcomes. We will produce a standard measurement system, standard operating procedures for data collection and will publish a report detailing our approach to measuring the final impact and outcomes of inclusivity and accessibility in farmer and farmworker mental health services. We have begun piloting these techniques and processes with isolated activities, for instance our listening sessions (Activity 3.2), and seek to systematize and formalize these first efforts. The Young Farmers experienced some significant staffing turnover this grant period. Due to this staffing change, we chose to pause Activity 1.7, which aimed to continue our BIPOC circles. This program creates safe spaces for BIPOC farmers, farmworkers and service providers. With the NCE, we will assess the effectiveness of the past circles and redesign this offering to improve its effectiveness. The Network website has experienced unforeseen technical challenges. Through the next reporting period, we will work with a website development company to address these issues (Activity 3.3)

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: Establish a Diverse, Regionally Representative Network of member organizations. The Advisory Team met every other week as planned (Activity 1.1) to guide the FRSAN-NE Network, known as "Cultivemos" or abbreviated to "the Network". The 10-member Farmer Advisory Board (Activity 1.2) renewed contracts, committing to serving as advisors to ensure the Network's work adequately reflects and addresses farmer stress and is accessible and appropriate. The Farmer Advisory Board also shared ideas and farming experiences to inform Network training, resources, and communication, and reviewed Network materials. The Farmer Advisory Board represents the diversity of farmers in the Northeast. All meetings include simultaneous interpretation and text translation in Spanish and English. Network Membership Meetings (Activity 1.3) are proceeding on a quarterly schedule, increasing Network understanding of the needs, skills, and capacities of other service providers and resources in the Network (see Outcome 1.3). Working Groups (Activity 1.4) support the Advisory Team by providing additional capacity and expertise to accomplish goals and meet project objectives. Each Working Group meets once or twice a month and is led by a subawardee organization member. This reporting period Cultivemos had an Evaluation and a Budget Working Group. Cohorts (Activity 1.5) function as communities of practice for service providers and farmers to connect and identify areas for collaboration. The Network currently consists of 16 cohorts. Cohorts submitted proposals for consultant projects intended to develop community-led training sessions and resources, establish best practices, and grow support in intersectional areas of need (Activity 1.6). Previous years' projects were expanded this grant period, including the second publication of the Trans Farmer for Trans Farmer Zine(tf4tf Zine) by the Trans Farmer Cohort, a second-of-its-kind conference on Disability and Agriculture in the Northeast hosted by the Disability and Agriculture Cohort, animated videos in English and Spanish for a low literacy audience about an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) by the Farmworker Cohort. Cohorts also worked on new projects, such as the Liberation Ecosystem Cohort's Farm Skills 101 training sessions and the Queer Farmer Cohort's Queer Farmer Fun Day. Objective 2: Develop a Clearinghouse of farmer assistance programs. The Resource Clearinghouse, known as the Farmer Resource Network (Activity 2.1), is a free online search tool that agricultural communities and service providers can use to find organizations and resources. Since its launch in Summer 2021, the Clearinghouse has expanded to include 1,885 active resources, adding 125 resources and translating 36 into Spanish this calendar year alone. In April 2023, the search tool became available in Spanish. This calendar year, 3,833 users accessed the Clearinghouse for a total and 5,849 views in all 13 states in the Northeast region. Farm First' self-assessment tools were also added to the Clearinghouse (Activity 2.3). The Network expanded Farm Aid's helpline services in the Northeast (Activity 2.2). Hotline Operators typically spend an average of 1.5 hours per farmer case, researching appropriate resources and referrals. The expanded Hotline Team has allowed increased hours dedicated to improving the Clearinghouse. To better serve this grant's target audiences, Farm Aid and Migrant Clinicians Network partnered to offer Hotline resources in Spanish; a Spanish-speaking operator began taking farmer calls in October 2022. This calendar year, 36 northeastern farmers sought support through the Hotline. The Hotline Team gave 170 referrals to farmer cases in the Cultivemos region; gave 83 referrals to resources within the Cultivemos region; gave 9 referrals to USDA (includes NRCS and SARE) programs; gave 4 referrals to FSA programs and FSA state offices within the Cultivemos Region; and gave 22 referrals to Departments of Agriculture and University Extensions throughout the Cultivemos region. Objective 3: Educate individuals/teams about FRSAN-NE (Cultivemos) activities. The Network has continued to develop events, workshops, and trainings (Activity 3.1) designed to equip Network members with the tools to best support the diverse agricultural community we serve. This grant period, we hosted 20 trainings with over 180 farmers and farmworkers, and covered topics such as identifying a mental health crisis and understanding the convergence between accessibility and mental health. NEFOC conducted a total of ten farmer listening sessions reaching 107 BIPOC, Latinx, queer, young farmers and farmworkers (Activity 3.2). Cultivemos continues our communication campaign (Activity 3.3) and experimented with less traditional communication tools to reach our target communities, such as the commissioning of artwork "soil portraits" that are being utilized for outreach at northeastern agricultural-related events. The network has continued to collaboratively convene national outreach meetings with FRSAN Regional Leads (Activity 3.4). Cultivemos has contracted an accessibility consultant (Activity 3.5) to assess and improve the training sessions and resources created within the Network. This work has culminated in an accessibility report that will be used as a guide to improve Network activity and will also serve as a resource and model for service providers in the Northeast and beyond. Objective 4: Provide a range of services referenced in the legislative authorities. To evaluate the effectiveness of grant activities, approach, connections and impacts, and disseminate results Cutlivemos conducts an annual Network Member Survey. (Activity 3.2) To be more responsive to the needs of farmers, who are busiest during the agricultural season, the Network shifted the administration of its annual Network Member survey to the winter season. This year we received 98 valid responses with 79 in English and 19 in Spanish. Cultivemos continues to conduct accurate and timely reporting and administrative management of our FRSAN award (Activity 4.2). Seven Cutlivemos directors and key consultants attended the National Coordination Council (NCC) meeting in Kansas City. The network has been represented at all NCC virtual meetings. (Activity 4.3)

Publications

• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Harvesting Success: Insights from the Northeast Latino Agricultural Community Conference