This is the fourth in a series of articles based on roundtable discussions on issues relevant to community coalitions from CADCA´s National Leadership Forum XVI, held Feb. 14-16, 2006, in Washington, DC. This discussion was facilitated by Stephanie Soares Pump and Keral Kronseder-Vogt, members of the CADCA National Coalition Institute´s Leader/Mentors.
Many people believe it is harder to do coalition work in a rural community than an urban or suburban area. Others believe that the challenges are not necessarily more difficult, just different. Regardless, coalition leaders from rural areas frequently feel isolated and voice the need to find out how to create effective coalitions where populations are small and there may be great distances between communities. This roundtable provided an opportunity for rural participants to share their strategies for increasing community involvement around the issue of youth drug use prevention.
Getting drug use data and other information out to the participating communities in language that is easy to understand is a key strategy for increasing community involvement. One strategy that several participants noted is using community residents to collect and report data. “People in the community want to hear things from local people.”
One participant from Iowa said, “We have put together lay data people from 14 counties to help us compile data to help counties do their needs assessments. Leveraging local resources to put data together has really helped. We also hold quarterly meetings with the data collectors.”
Another participant added, “We got lay people to compile a ‘county drug index’ which was a collection of data organized into an easy to read notebook. We got media coverage when we put it out and the index created a ripple effect—once people saw there really was a local problem, many local organizations wanted to get involved!”
It’s essential, said a participant from Utah, that coalitions get out data that is correct. “A recent statewide survey showed that previous data was wrong. That discovery has motivated many people to go out and get the right data.”
After the data is collected and disseminated to the community, strategic planning begins. A 2000 law in Kentucky mandates that all counties in the state have a strategic plan for substance abuse issues. Noted a participant from Kentucky, “We worked to bring all the important players to the table. It helped us understand program duplication and gaps that we can work together to fill. Now we have one plan for substance abuse in the entire county.”
In Arkansas, the larger issue was bringing together different government groups—schools, municipal governments, tribal entities—that were allowing politics to get in the way of action. The solution? “We brought them together by focusing on kids. After all, who isn’t interested in the collective welfare of our children? We brought them together on this point.”
Additionally, the Arkansas participant pointed out, “We found that to get parents out to a meeting, we had to get their children involved in something. So we had the kids put on a presentation—a play, singing or something else that the parents would want to come out and watch. At the end of the performance, we would talk about prevention. The people didn’t even know that we were having a meeting!”
And how do you get information out to community members when they’re spread out geographically and there aren’t as many media options as an urban or suburban area? Community coalitions get creative:
While rural communities face many challenges in bringing people—often from large geographic areas—to the table, many benefits also exist. In particular, residents in rural communities are more likely to have personal relationships with other members of the community—from the local librarian to members of the town council, from the local merchant to the high school principal. These types of relationships can help coalitions achieve their goals.