Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
2001 S. Lincoln Ave.
URBANA,IL 61801
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The overall goal of this project is to provide an updated, asynchronous, online, research-based training program for Farm Service Agency personnel to enhance their mental health literacy (i.e., knowledge, skills, and confidence related to mental health and assisting a distressed person). To meet project goals, the project team proposes a multistage process. First, the PIs and federal partners will reflect on past training development and processes, identify new topics and resources to develop, and determine additional relevant collaborators to be inclusive of experts from diverse geographic, agricultural, disciplinary, and/or personal demographic backgrounds. Second, the project team will review existing training content, update training content with new topics and research findings, and record lectures and/or interviews to be part of the online training. Third, the team will load learning materials and resources into the online learning management system. Fourth, FSA personnel will take a pre-training evaluation, participate in the online training, and complete a post-training evaluation. Evaluation data will be used to assess improvements in farm stress knowledge, and skills and confidence to help a distressed person. Agriculturalists in the U.S. experience worse mental health than the general population; with existing presence and relationships with community members, FSA personnel are in a unique position to notice distressed producers and offer information. The proposed project will enhance their ability to do so, and the project team has strong experience and expertise to carry out the project.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The goal of the proposed project is to provide an updated, asynchronous, online, research-based training and outreach materials to support service activities to farmers and ranchers experiencing stress. Agriculturalists in the U.S. experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide than the general population and farmers who have died by suicide are less likely to have received mental health care. Non-specialists can play an important role in helping people experiencing distress through training in mental health literacy programs to improve knowledge about signs and symptoms of psychological distress, skills to communicate with a distressed person, and confidence to share mental health resources with distressed people. FSA personnel are well-suited to help distressed farmers because they regularly interact with farmers and because of the established relationships they have in county offices around the country.
Project Methods
The project approach is to build on existing infrastructure and resources through a multi-stage process. Stage 1 includes collaborative conversations between the project team, FSA, and relevant program officers to establish mutual goals and expectations regarding process and content for online training and outreach materials. This stage will include reflections on past farm stress training development, building the process for peer-review of existing content, identifying new topics to include, and identifying relevant experts, including but not limited to the national Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network. Some new topics that would be relevant to the training include substance misuse; trauma-informed approaches; how to identify local mental health resources; how stress and mental health are experienced differently across intersectional identities in agriculture, such as experiences by race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, religion, veteran status, national origin, language, and so on; tele-health resources; suicide loss survivor resources. Stage 1 also includes obtaining files developed by Michigan State University (MSU) for the first round of farm stress training.Stage 2 will include peer review of existing content, updating existing content with any new research findings and recommendations from peer review, and developing new content on identified topics. New content may take the form of recorded lectures or interviews, links to external websites, and/or new PDF worksheets and guides. This stage will include engagement with a national network of experts in agricultural mental health, including faculty, Extension staff, partners from agricultural stakeholder groups, and agriculturalists with lived experience.Stage 3 will include streamlining existing and new content into one structure and loading it into a learning management system (e.g., AgLearn) and preparing for participant engagement. Evaluations for participants will be created during Stages 2 and 3. During Stage 4, FSA staff will be asked to complete a pre-training evaluation, the training itself, and a post-training evaluation; the project team will subsequently analyze evaluation data.