Progress 09/01/24 to 08/31/25

Outputs
Target Audience:We reached our Year 1 goal of developing a lay-leader program. We reached our goal of recruiting 7 lay leaders. All 7 lay leaders successfully implemented Wits Workout with a community partner organization. We were also successful in recruiting community partners, which included senior centers, libraries, one community center, and one YMCA in our target rural counties. Wits Workout was delivered to 110 participants - this number exceeded our goal of enrolling 105 participants in year 1. Also, more than 70% of the participants completed the Wits Workout Program - so there was good program completion at these 7 sites. More than 60% of Wits participants completed the pre and post program evaluations, so we exceeded our goal for evaluation responses. We are excited to start analyzing the data and will report results. We recruiting 5 Spanish speaking people to serve on our cultural adaptation panel (CAP). Also, our graduate assistant Leslie Camarillo is a 2nd generation Latino who is fluent in Spanish - she helped to coordinate the CAP's work and contributed to the cultural adaptation. We on are on track to finish the cultural adaptation of Wits Workout by the end of Year 1. We only have 2 more units (out of 12) to finish and the adapted program has been checked by our Extension Cultural Adaptation Specialist. We are now having the units (as they are finished) designed (graphic design) to seamlessly integrate into the Wits Workout Leader Guide and Program Curriculum. In all, we have met our goals and objectives for year 1 and are actively planning our Year 2 activities. We are on track and greatly appreciate the opportunity to do this important work in rural Illinois. Changes/Problems:We were only able to budget $200 each to give to community partners to offset costs related to facilities expenses (utilities, cleaning of the room where the program was held) and marketing. Likewise, we were only able to provide leaders with a $200 stipend to plan and deliver a 12-week program. We feel this leader stipend was too low (didn't adequately provide support for their time, planning, hard work, implementation, etc.). It made recruiting leaders more challenging. Thus, we submitted an application for the supplemental funding opportunity in hopes we receive exra funding so we can increase the leader stipend to $1,000 per lay leader. We also had some challenges marketing the program, although we provided informative flyers and social media posts. It's hard to get a clear picture of what Wits Workout looks like in action and how much fun the program is for participants and leaders. Thus, through the supplemental funding opportunity, we asked for funds to create a promotional video that could be used to recruit sites, leaders, and participants. We think a video will help increase recruitment and marketing effectiveness. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?All leaders participated in the Wits Workout Lay Leader Training program (delivered virtually) and all lay leaders participated in at least 1 fidelity evaluation (onsite) conducted by 2 of our team members (Chelsey Byers and Molly Hofer). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have collected our evaluation data and will start analyzing it soon - around August 20th and expect to have results to share by October, 2025. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We have already started to plan for and do year 2 activities, which include reaching additional rural sites (we have already recruited 1 site for year 2). We have begun the graphic design phase of the Spanish cultural adaptation as well. We are on track to complete all of our Year 2 goals and objectives and expect to meet our year 2 goals as laid out in our project goals/objectives. Specifically, year 2 goals/objectives and expected outcomes include: Year 2 Activities and Outcomes 1) Reach and Implementation of WW Spanish Lay Leader Training: Reach: At least 2 bilingual lay leaders will be recruited and trained to facilitate WW in Spanish in at least 2 sites across the 7 rural counties. Reach and Implementation of WW English Lay Leader Training: At least 5 lay leaders will be recruited and trained to facilitate WW English in 5 additional sites in the 7 rural counties. 2) Reach and Implemenation of WW Spanish: WW Spanish will be deliverd in 2 rural counties to 15 participants/site (N=30) with a 70% or more of participants completing the program based on attending 9 of 12 sessions. Reach and Implemenation of WW English: WW English will be delivered in at least 5 sites to 15 participants/site (N=75) with a participant completion rate of 70% based on attending 9 of 12 sessions. Implementation and Efficacy: At least 60% of participants in WW English and WW Spanish will evaluate the program as increasing opportunities for social engagement and rate the program as intellectually stimulating. At least 75% of participants will rate their interactions with lay leaders as "good" or "excellent" and at least 75% of participants will rate the program content as "good" or "excellent." Implementation, Efficacy, and Maintenance: At least 3 in person and/or virtual focus groups (1 for WW Spanish and 2 WW English) will be conducted one month after completing WW to assess satisfaction with program elements (as stated in Y1) and assess the extent to which participants are still engaging in healthy behavior activities.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? As previously reported, we accomplished all of our Year 1 goals of: 1) recruiting 7 sites and leaders for WW implementation. 2) reaching at least 105 participants of which at least 70% completed the program 3) reaching a pre-post evaluation response rate of at least 60% (our response rate was higher - 77% response rate 4) we recruited 5 Spanish speaing people to serve on the cultural adapation panel (CAP) and we are on schedule to complete the cultural adaptation by the end of year 1. 5) we are starting to update the leader guide for the cultural adaptation and starting to have the new Spanish program modules graphically designed for integration into the curriculum guide. (we are ahead of schedule on these tasks) 6) we also completed 2 leader/community partner focus groups and 2 participant focus groups. - exceeding our year 1 goals.

Publications