Progress 09/01/17 to 08/31/19
Outputs
Target Audience:This project delivered Strengthening Families Program: For Parents and Youth 10-14 (SFP10-14) in three states: Indiana, Kansas and South Dakota. A total of 104facilitators of the program were trained across the 3 states for the implementation of this program during the two year project period. Facilitators included Extension personnel/staff and community members representative of the rural counties they will be serving. As indicated in our proposal, the demographics for such counties are overwhelmingly Caucasian individuals and thus the individuals trained to facilitate SFP10-14 are reflective of this. Ten unique SFP 10-14 programs were delivered in 10 different counties across the 3 states. Per grant guidelines, the communities where SFP10-14 was delivered are located in rural counties. In South Dakota, the project has allowed us to work with and reach those who are Native American and/or living on a reservation/part of a tribal community. For theCombating Opioidswebinar series that the project hosted, there were more than 637 participants on 8 live webinars during over the two year project period. Per evaluation of these webinars, participants self-identified as the following: 36% health professionals, 29% Extension Educators, 12% professors or researchers; 9% general public, 10% community leaders, 4% community volunteers.Specific demographic details of those participating on the webinar series is not captured. Changes/Problems:There were three major challenges related to the implementation of Strengthening Families Program that have been noted for the duration of the project period. While there has been success in getting teams of individuals trained for delivering the program (each program requires 3 people to implement), there has been turn-over in staffing and several individuals who were trained have now left their organizations. Additionally, it is ideal if there are 2 Extension staff and 1 community partner who comprise the team for program delivery. Identifying and engaging community partners to be trained and serve as a team member has not been easy because of the time needed to devote to the program.With limited facilitators, it is challenging to schedule this program. The recruitment of families to participate in this program continues to be challenging. Class sizes are very small and getting parents/youth/families to commit to and show up for each of the 7 weeks of the program (2 hours each session)is unpredictable. There are a lot of resources that are needed to offer this program and for such small groups, it is hard to justify hosting a course with 3 families, for example. Without being able to utilize grant funds for incentives, there is limited leverage the project can offer to motivate families to participate. Another condition that was modified during the project period was the inclusion of more rural counties to be possible sites for SFP10-14 program delivery from the original focus on only 8 counties over the 2 year period. Having learned from limited implementation of this program during Year 1, efforts were made to scale up and promote this program in other qualifying counties under the rural code requirements in hopes of successfully offering more programs during the funding period. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project provided training and/or professional development in a couple of ways. Training individuals to serve as facilitators for SFP:10-14 allowedmultiple states not only to be able to deliver the program in rural counties, but italso served as professional development for those attending, as it increased their skills to engage with and educate families. Professional development was offered on a quarterly basis during the grant project through the "Combating Opioids" webinar series. There were a total of 8 webinars presented during the project period. Participants could join live on the day of the event or can view archived versions of the content on our project website. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?An evaluation of SFP 10-14 was conducted as part of this project. This evaluation report is being shared with all state leads, and all facilitators who were trained as part of this grant program. Results from the families, adults and youth served by this project indicate a statistically significant improvement in positive behaviors among both adults and youth participants, thus helping families to discuss OUD and prevent youth from engaging in risky health behaviors. Facilitators and state liaisons can share outcomes from this program in their respective counties and communities to show impact and encourage use of this program at a local level. A process evaluation was conducted on facilitators of SFP10-14 and comes from facilitator feedback forms and end of program surveys they completed. This evaluation was shared among state leads on the project from the 3 states delivering this program. This evaluation data about facilitator engagement and experience has helped to identify strengths/weaknesses among facilitators from each respective state and identified ways the grant team can better support their efforts. The webinar series website where archived versions are housed has been shared extensively through connections from each state partner (5) on the grant for any person to access and learn. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This project allowed for the delivery of the number one, evidence-based program for substance use prevention-- Strengthening Families Program: For Parents and Youth 10-14-- to families in rural communities across 3 states. As a result of participation in the program, parents/youth experience the following outcomes: delay the onset of adolescent substance use; lower levels of aggression in youth; increase the resistance to peer pressure in youth; reduce youth conduct problems in school; and improve parent skills including building a positive relationship with their youth, setting appropriate limits, and following through on consequences, while showing love and support for their children. The webinar series on opioids is informing multiple community sectors on the epidemic and how it not only impacts their communities but also provides resources and possible interventions that could be implemented at the local level. Accomplishments related to each project objective are described below. Objective 1:Deliver and evaluate an evidence-based educational program, SFP10-14, in a variety of rural contexts. Activities:Teams of facilitators were trained on this evidence-based program to serve rural counties in three states. The SFP10-14 program has also been implemented in the states. Data: During the project period, a total of 104 facilitators from 3 states have been trained to deliver SFP10-14. Ten SFP10-14 programs were held in ten different counties in the 3 states with more than 35 families and 148 adult and youth participants. Data from the evaluation of both adult and youth participants shows a statistically significant difference between participant behavior prior to the program and after the program. In all cases, behaviors that suggest move positive outcomes are more frequent after attending the program. Summary: The project has been successful at training teams of facilitators to implement SFP10-14 in rural counties across the three states. The project has successfully delivered this evidence-based program in each of the 3 implementation states. Key Outcomes/Realizations: The project exceeded its goal of training 54 facilitators over the 2 year period, with 104 people being trained. Among adult and youth participants, evaluations show a statistically significant difference between behavior before compared to after the program, indicating more positive behaviors as a result of the program. The recruitment of and full participation by families in the SFP10-14 program was a challenge throughout the project period, as the project did not meet its goal for the total number of families (adults and youth) to be served. Objective 2:Support Extension education to increase health literacy on the causes and consequences of opioid misuse and abuse for individuals and families living in rural communities. Activities:This objective was achieved with each webinar presented during the quarterly webinar series, "Combating Opioids". Data: Eight webinars were hosted over the project period. The webinar series reached over 637 participants and has collectively had over 1,675 views of archived materials. A voluntary, online, post-webinar survey provided information about the webinars from participants. The majority of participants (80%) felt the webinars will help them in their activities and 85% felt inspired to want to learn more. Nearly 70% of participants felt the webinars helped them gain a new perspective and 73% learned something new about the causes and consequences of opioid misuse and/or abuse. Summary: The webinar series was successful at reaching a diverse audience (36% health professionals, 29% Extension Educators, 12% professors or researchers, 10% community leaders, 9% general public, 4% community volunteers). The majority of participants (80%) felt the webinars will help them in their activities and 85% felt inspired to want to learn more. Key Outcomes/Realizations: Content shared by webinar presenters increased the knowledge and aware of OUD among participants and is useful to the work and responsibilities of those who participate on the calls from a variety of professions/community sectors. Objective 3:Increase professionals' capacity to engage in health leadership in rural communities, including skills to collaborate, connect, communicate and build community capacity to address rural health. Activities:This objective was met through the webinar series offered on a quarterly basis. Data: Eight webinars were hosted over the project period. The webinar series reached over 637 participants and has collectively had over 1,675 views of archived materials. The webinar series was successful at reaching a diverse audience (36% health professionals, 29% Extension Educators, 12% professors or researchers, 10% community leaders, 9% general public, 4% community volunteers). Summary: The webinar series reached a large number of professionals with information about how to engage their community to address rural health issues in general, but also identify and share strategies specific to the opioid crisis.Nearly 70% of webinar participants felt the webinars helped them gain a new perspective and 73% learned something new about the causes and consequences of opioid misuse and/or abuse. Key Outcomes/Realizations: The webinar series reaches professionals with great information and resources to help build capacity at the local level to tackle the opioid epidemic. Objective 4: Increase public access to new ideas and technologies related to opioid misuse and abuse prevention in rural areas that have been successful at the community level. Activities:Hosting the webinar series on a quarterly basis addressed this objective. Data: Eight webinars were hosted over the project period. The webinar series reached over 637 participants and has collectively had over 1,675 views of archived materials. All archived materials are available for future reference by the general public and leaders in communities across the nation. Summary: Each webinar in the series provided insight to the opioid crisis from different perspectives, thus sharing new information about the crisis and resources that communities may access to help fight it--from best practices, to research, to data, and programs/treatment. Key Outcomes/Realizations: Strategies used by communities to address the opioid crisis will vary widely. Offering multiple ideas on how to tackle the issue is imperative. Objective 5:Increase public health knowledge and engage the health system, leading to actions that promote or enhance rural health and well-being. Activities:The webinar series accomplished this objective. Data: Eight webinars were hosted over the project period. The webinar series reached over 637 participants and has collectively had over 1,675 views of archived materials. Over 1/3 of webinar participants (36%) identified as health professionals. Summary: The webinar was successful at reaching health care professionals to impart information about OUD. Key Outcomes/Realizations: Healthcare professionals are in a key position to help communities address the opioid crisis and educate the general public about opioid misuse and abuse. Reaching them with information, best practices and possible community-based solutions is necessary.
Publications
|
Progress 09/01/17 to 08/31/18
Outputs
Target Audience:This project will deliver Strengthening Families Program: For Parents and Youth 10-14 (SFP10-14) in three states: Indiana, Kansas and South Dakota. A total of 58facilitators of the program were trained across the 3 states for the implementation of this program during Year 1. Facilitators included Extension personnel/staff and community members representative of the rural counties they will be serving. As indicated in our proposal, the demographics for such counties are overwhelmingly Caucasian individuals and thus the individuals trained to facilitate SFP10-14 are reflective of this. Four SFP:10-14 programs were conducted in the states during Year 1, serving parents, youth and families in each state. Per grant guidelines, the communities where SFP10-14 is being delivered are located in rural counties. In South Dakota, the project has allowed us to work with and reach those who are Native American and/or living on a reservation/part of a tribal community. For theCombating Opioidswebinar series that the project is hosting, there have been more than 550 participants on 4 webinars during Year 1. Per evaluation of these webinars, participants self-identified as the following: 38% health professionals, 23% Extension Educators, 14% professors or researchers; 12% general public, 9% community leaders, 4% community volunteers.Specific demographic details of those participating on the webinar series is not captured. Changes/Problems:There are two major challenges related to the implementation of Strengthening Families Program that have been noted during Year 1 of the project. While there has been success in getting teams of individuals trained for delivering the program (each program requires 3 people to implement), there has been turn-over in staffing and several individuals who were trained have now left their organizations. It is anticipated that more individuals will need to be trained to facilitate this program as the project enters Year 2. This will push back the ability to deliver programming seamlessly between Years 1 and 2. Additionally, it is ideal if there are 2 Extension staff and 1 community partner who comprise the team for program delivery. Identifying and engaging community partners to be trained and serve as a team member has not been easy because of the time needed to devote to the program.With limited facilitators, it is challenging to schedule this program. The recruitment of families to participate in this program continues to be challenging. Class sizes are very small and getting parents/youth/families to commit to and show up for each of the 7 weeks of the program (2 hours each session)is unpredictable. There are a lot of resources that are needed to offer this program and for such small groups, it is hard to justify hosting a course with 3 families, for example. Without being able to utilize grant funds for incentives, there is limited leverage the project can offer to motivate families to participate. Another condition to be changedasthe project enters Year 2 is the need to addrural counties/communities in each state to be served with the SFP10-14 program. With limited implementation of this program during Year 1, we wish to scale up efforts to other qualifying counties under the rural code requirements. The single challenge originally experienced for the opioid webinar series was having more participants join our first webinar than open lines available to accommodate everyone. This problem was easily addressed by the time the second webinar was hosted and there has continued to be great interest and participation in our series over the course of the first year. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project has provided training and/or professional development in a couple of ways. Training individuals to serve as facilitators for SFP:10-14 allowedmultiple states not only to be able to deliver the program in rural counties, but italso served as professional development for those attending, as it increased their skills to engage with and educate families. Professional development is offered on a quarterly basis during the grant project through the "Combating Opioids" webinar series. During Year 1, there were 4 webinars presented. Participants could join live on the day of the event or can view archived versions of the content on our project website. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?With few families served with SFP:10-14, dissemination of evaluations from this program have not been released. This is to ensure that no identifying data could be linked to specific families in location/statewhere the training was held. As more parents/youth/families are served under the program, results will be shared. A process evaluation was conducted on facilitators of SFP10-14 and comes from facilitator feedback forms and end of program surveys they completed. This evaluation was shared among state leads on the project from the 3 states delivering this program. This evaluation data about facilitator engagement and experience has helped to identify strengths/weaknesses among facilitators from each respective state and identified ways the grant team can better support their efforts. The webinar series website where archived versions are housed has been shared extensively through connections from each statepartner on the grant for any person to access and learn. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Grant activities are planned to continue as outlined in the project's original work plan. It is anticipated that more facilitators will need to be trained in a couple of states. Additionally, the team may add more qualifying rural counties in each state to the list of those potentially served in an attempt to reach more families and deliver SFP10-14 more frequently. More emphasis on recruitment of families for SFP10-14 programs will be a focus as well. The webinar series will continue into Year 2 on a quarterly basis to help us achieve many of the project objectives.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This project has allowed for delivery of the number one, evidence-based program for substance abuse prevention--Strengthening Families Program: For Parents and Youth 10-14--to families in rural communities across 3 states. As a result of participation in the program, parents/youth experience the following outcomes: delay the onset of adolescent substance use; lower levels of aggression in youth; increase the resistance to peer pressure in youth; reduce youth conduct problems in school; and improve parent skills including building a positive relationship with their youth, setting appropriate limits, and following through on consequences, while showing love and support for their children. The webinar series on opioids is informing multiple community sectors on the epidemic and how it not only impacts their communities but also provides resources and possible interventions that could be implemented at the local level. Accomplishments related to each project objective are described below. Objective 1:Deliver and evaluate an evidence-based educational program, SFP10-14, in a variety of rural contexts. Activities:Teams of facilitators have been trained on this evidence-based program to serve rural counties in three states. The SFP10-14 program has also been implemented in the states. Data: During Year 1, a total of 58 facilitators from 3 states have been trained to deliver SFP10-14. Four SFP10-14 programs have been held in the 3 states, with 46 parents/youth/ being served. (Note: Some numbers regarding those served were not yet reported at the time of submission of this report.) Summary: The project has been successful at training teams of facilitators to implement SFP10-14 in rural counties across the three states. The project has successfully delivered this evidence-based program in each of the 3 implementation states. Key Outcomes/Realizations: The recruitment of and full participation by families in the SFP10-14 program has presented significant challenges to the project's success of this objective. The program's multi-session nature and scheduling may be a deterrent for families to participate. Program implementation efforts will continue in Year 2. Objective 2:Support Extension education to increase health literacy on the causes and consequences of opioid misuse and abuse for individuals and families living in rural communities. Activities:This objective is achieved with each webinar presented during the quarterly webinar series, "Combating Opioids". Data: The webinar series has reached over 550 participants and has collectively had over 1,000 views of archived materials. The webinar titled "How the Opioid Crisis Impacts Individual and Rural Communities" focused on educating on this topic and increasing understanding and health literacy related to this epidemic, including terminology often used when discussing this issue. Over 2/3 of all participants felt the webinars helped them gain a new perspective and taught them something new about the causes and consequences of opioid misuse and/or abuse. Over 80% of participants felt the webinar will help them in their activities and inspired them to want to learn more. Summary: The webinar series is a good platform to reach large audiences across the country with information about the opioid crisis, including increasing awareness and understanding of the topic, and offering insight into possible community-based initiatives to address the issue. Key Outcomes/Realizations: Content shared by webinar presenters is useful to the work and responsibilities of those who participate on the calls from a variety of professions/community sectors. Objective 3:Increase professionals' capacity to engage in health leadership in rural communities, including skills to collaborate, connect, communicate and build community capacity to address rural health. Activities:This objective is largely met through the webinar series offered on a quarterly basis. Data: The webinar series has had over 550 participants during Year 1 and has collectively had over 1,000 views of archived materials. Nearly 90% of participants on the webinars (88%) indicate they are in a professional role (community volunteer, community leader, health professional, professor/researcher, and Extension staff, compared to self-identifying as part of the general public (12%). Summary: The webinar series is reaching a large number of professionals with information about how to engage their community to address rural health issues in general, but also identify and share strategies specific to the opioid crisis. Key Outcomes/Realizations: The webinar series reaches professionals with great information and resources to help build capacity at the local level to tackle the opioid epidemic. Objective 4: Increase public access to new ideas and technologies related to opioid misuse and abuse prevention in rural areas that have been successful at the community level. Activities:Hosting the webinar series on a quarterly basis has helped to address this objective. Each webinar in the series provides insight to the opioid crisis from different perspectives, thus sharing new information about the crisis and resources that communities may access to help fight it--from best practices, to research, to data, and programs/treatment. Data: The webinar series has reached over 550 participants who learn of information and resources related to understanding and addressing substance misuse/abuse at the local level. An additional 1,000 views of our recorded/archived webinar series has been achieved. Summary: Providing information and education about community-level strategies and implications of these efforts will allow for individuals and professionals to make informed choices, and the best choice, for efforts in their community. Key Outcomes/Realizations: Strategies used by communities to address the opioid crisis will vary widely. Offering multiple ideas on how to tackle the issue is imperative. Objective 5:Increase public health knowledge and engage the health system, leading to actions that promote or enhance rural health and well-being. Activities:The webinar series helps to accomplish this objective. Data: The webinar series has had over 550 participants, with 38% identifying as a health professional. It is anticipated that in Year 2 the project will reach similar demographics with the webinar series. Summary: The webinar series reaches an audience of health professionals who can help to lead community-based activities to address the opioid epidemic where they live. Key Outcomes/Realizations: Topics for Year 2 of the webinar series will have a continued focus on health policy and healthcare implications to address the opioid crisis.
Publications
|