This week’s Friday Field Notes feature a campaign plan to promote the Community Capacity Training Modules on the Fort Drum installation in Jefferson County, New York. The goal of the campaign is to better connect the military service professionals on the installation to the resources offered by Cornell Cooperative Extension Association of Jefferson County (CCE). It is our aim that this campaign serve as a model to be used by installations across the country.
Campaign Plan Steps:
1.) Conduct a targeted outreach event for the Fort Drum community to educate stakeholders about OneOp. CCE collaborated with the Family Advocacy Program at Army Community Services (ACS) to host this event. This will allow advertisement through all the on-post human service Facebook pages and other communication networks to include child care, ACS, TAP (Transition Assistance Program) and MEDDAC.
This outreach event introduced an audience of professionals (primarily Military Family Life Consultants) working with Fort Drum Families to the MFLN, provided a brief history and purpose of MFLN, reviewed the primary concentration areas, with focus on Community Capacity Building including local programs that exemplify CCB at Fort Drum. There was also a review of the resources available and educational opportunities (webinars, trainings, etc.,). Participants were invited to contribute to conversation and networking.
2. Prepare a press release for the region – This included Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence County newspapers and detailed the resources available. A modified version of the press release was also distributed to the North Country Council of Social Agencies and linked to their Website and Facebook.
3.) Distribute Infographic – Investigate options with Fort Drum Public Affairs to advertise through Fort Drum venues.
Distribute Infographic at local events, such as:
- Fort Drum Career Fair
- Youth Services Network
- Youth, Family and Community Development Program Advisory
- AG Extravaganza
- Environmental Awareness Day
4. Distribute at Cornell Cooperative Extension Staff meeting to be passed along to a wider network (schools, community centers, businesses) – approximately 40 staff in attendance received the infographic for distribution.
5. Appear on local news channel to share information about OneOp resources: featured on Chanel 7 News on December 9th, 2016.
An after action report was generated upon conclusion of this campaign, here were some suggestions and insights as to how this campaign could be improved:
- Keep presentations about OneOp resources short and to the point. Don’t spend a lot of time clicking around to show an overwhelming amount of resources. Let the audience practice navigating the website by making directional choices within each content area.
- Emphasize that this is an online learning community. Reviewing resources such as the webinars tends to be most helpful and is the primary interest of military family service professionals.
- Attend other group meetings and make presentations to multiple groups. Suggestions included superintendents of schools, community organizations and volunteer groups, and agency staff meetings on local installations.
