- Hello, welcome to Collective Action, Multisector Strategies to Build Community Protections. We are so
- happy to have Stephanie Solomon, Olivia Smith, and Colleen Yeagle here to join us today. But a few quick
- housekeeping items before we get started. If you need any assistance during the presentation, my name
- is Cassidy. I'll be up here at the front. Ruth is also in the back waving her hand over there. If you
- need anything, please feel free to flag either of us down. Your feedback will shape MC3 planning,
- So please fill out a session feedback form for this session. You can scan the QR code on your little
- table tent there, as well as all of the resources from our sessions today. We also have paper evaluation
- forms that you could fill out as well, and those should be turned in in the blue bin in the back of
- the room at the end of the session. Lastly, if you are planning to receive continuing education credits
- for this session, please stay until the end and mark this session on your CE tracking form as you leave.
- All right.
- Thank you very much for being here and I'll go ahead and pass the mic.
- All right, welcome everyone. Thanks for joining us. I'm Stephanie Solomon and it's lovely to see friendly
- faces. I've had the privilege of working in Monroe County for many years, but now I'm working out of
- Indy with the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence and love the big circle of the work that we're
- gonna do today. So I wanna give
- my co-presenters a minute just to introduce themselves. And then we're really gonna get to dig into
- how collective action works. And these are some activities and threads that those of you who've been
- to the summit in the past or were are involved with BTCC will recognize. Right, Olivia, would you like
- to do a quick?
- My name is Olivia Smith. I'm a policy analyst with the Indiana Community Action Poverty Institute. So
- we primarily focus on research and advocacy that supports the financial well-being of low to moderate
- income Hoosiers, which is a pretty big umbrella because financial well-being ties into many, many aspects.
- So that's how we are crossing paths with lovely folks at ICADB.
- Good morning, everyone. I'm Colleen Yackel, and I get to do evaluation for the Indiana Coalition Against
- Domestic Violence. I've been there for 17 years, but prior to moving to the coalition, I was raised
- here locally by Middleway House, worked for the home team for 11 years prior to going to go, hey, friends.
- So very excited to be with you today and to talk about our potential impact through collective action.
- And over to you for disclaimer.
- OK, so in a smaller group, we would want to hear from all of you, but hopefully we'll get to connect
- as we move along. But a quick disclaimer, this project is supported by an award from the Centers for
- Disease and Prevention. It's called the Delta Award, but we want to be clear that the opinions and findings are ours.
- Yeah, want to make sure to put that out there as we get started. All right. I love how this is like
- running a relay race. Terrific. So let's see, that's not the one I want. That's the one I want. Why
- is collaboration across sectors essential and awesome?
- Real question, not hypothetical. We will run with a mic. Why is our collaboration critical, please?
- It helps break down silos that we have within our community, and it keeps us more engaged together in
- working towards that collaborative goal of helping children and families within the county.
- And without that collaboration, we're all just going to keep running in circles around each other. Say
- more about running around in circles without each other, please. Yeah. A lot of us end up, when we're
- in our silos, we're stuck dealing with the same situations that we may not all have the answers for
- individually in our organizations or as individual
- people. But if we collaborate, we can use each other's resources and be available to each other in ways
- that the systems don't necessarily want us to. And that's beautiful. OK. So by working together, we
- can really get at the roots of the problem. Root cause issues are where it's at. Right. And it's hard
- when we are so occupied and overburdened with managing the symptoms. So it's an act of intentionality
- to be like, we've got to team up. Yeah. And one behind you? We have one here.
- Hello? So another way is kind of further along that line, we can think further outside the box, as well
- as getting community buy-in, the more we spread it around. I love that. So we can just
- Catalyze one another's creativity when we work together because we have shared interests and different
- perspectives. Dig it. And the idea of bringing in more community engagement and commitment. Everyone
- write that down on your to-do list. It's what we need to leverage real change, right? Cool. Yeah.
- Within the field of applied behavior analysis, there are specific lanes or areas which we are allowed
- to work when we receive funding through insurance companies. And so understanding who is working in
- the areas that we cannot work because of the structure of funding allows us to direct people towards
- those who are working in the areas that we cannot or should not be working in. Okay, so it can extend
- our reach.
- in all kinds of ways. Yeah, I love that. What else? I was just going to say it helps eliminate duplication
- of effort. So you're not doing something that someone else is doing and dividing the funding and the
- human resources that are needed to do that. Right. And it's astonishing to me the degree to which that
- happens when each of us is under
- funded and under supported. How can we be redundant when there aren't enough of us? But if we can be
- in communication to be better aligned, we can better meet the extent of the need through our insufficient
- means. Love it. Anybody else? Yes.
- One thing is it gives us a louder voice when we're working together. The other thing that I think is
- really important is we make, when we're all divided, we are making it a full-time job to get support
- from your community when you have no resources. So when we work collaboratively, we can make finding
- support not a job, but really a service for the people we're trying to reach. Right. Excellent.
- All good ideas, you have 100% convinced me. So what I'm wondering is, why don't we? Why don't we? And
- there's some cheaty answers for you up there, but don't look. Look away. I think one of the reasons
- we don't is because we're afraid. Like, if you don't know where to go and you don't know where to start,
- it's really daunting to just reach out blindly.
- or to put effort into something that might not go anywhere. OK. Also, on our to-do list, then, I don't
- know what the right phrase is here. Not get over ourselves, because that fear is real. But stare into
- it, because I think it is our obligation. Great. I think like what you said before, being understaffed
- and overworked, and it seems like it's one more thing to research, investigate, and I think you mentioned
- it being a job versus a service. It's hard to make space. It's hard to make space. How many of us wait
- an hour too long to pee? It's hard to make space. It is an act of intentionality to say,
- we can be stronger together, and I'm gonna figure out what that requires of me and how I will make space.
- And I will write it into my calendar to make it so. Next to go pee. Awesome. There's not always buy-in
- from the organizations that we're involved with or working under, and I think that's a big challenge
- for a lot of folks here. Yeah, so part of making space is who do you need to persuade?
- in order to allow yourself to have space, because otherwise you're just frustrated seeing the bigger
- vision and the connections, but not being able to access them. Why else? I feel like we are constantly
- being told there's not enough to go around, that the people who control the purse strings, whether it's
- a boss or a state legislator, the governor, other people in power, are like, there's not enough. So
- I think that
- what surrounds you shapes you. And that makes you feel like you have to hoard and hold on to what you
- have and be afraid to take the risk of saying, hey, can you come do this with me? Because what if you
- get a slice of my very tiny piece of pie when, in fact, it's a bunch of lies? It's simply not true.
- I agree. I mean, I think in a lot of ways, our silos are sort of self-imposed through organizational
- habits of keeping our head down and just managing the overwhelming to-do list.
- But in other ways, we are driven into those silos by funding competition, competition for the same work.
- We're placed in that position every year to compete with our friends and to smooch the bottoms of people who
- probably have different interests than us. It's a very strange structure that we're operating under.
- So I think thinking very clearly about how we are pressured into silos through scarcity and again to
- face the fear and think about how will I make space to make this possible. Yeah, over there. A new thing
- that I recently heard was avoiding healthy conflict. So like
- not wanting to partner with someone because you do the same kind of work. And so thinking that yours
- is going to be conflict if you come together because you're competing for funding, but your purpose
- aligns. And so you're avoiding conflict, but in the end, your impact would be greater. So just avoiding
- that healthy conflict in the beginning could stop you from connecting with them. Yeah.
- Yeah, putting that also in the bucket of get over our lovely, wonderful selves and make space for trust,
- for greater growth, for collaboration. Yeah. Just a quick comment. My name is Marcus Whitehead. I'm
- the program director at the Community Foundation in Bloomington Monroe County. When you started talking
- about funding, are there any other funders in the room? Am I the only one?
- For us, oftentimes when we have a competitive grant cycle, one of the things that gives a proposal a
- leg up is if it is a collaborative effort. That's something we like to just kind of encourage the spirit
- of collaboration. So when we get a proposal, it just makes sense for these entities to come together and
- provide solutions. That's actually something that we find very appealing with a proposal when it makes
- sense and it's done well. So I just thought it might be worth mentioning that. I appreciate that deeply
- and I think it is most impactful when all the collaborators are funded. Otherwise we are working together
- but we're still in ways facing economic scarcity and competition. I think also to recognize that nonprofits
- are constantly sprinting
- I mean, we have so many one year grants that means we're always getting started and it's really hard
- to not always feel like you're checking your rear view to see what's coming up. It's hard to do longer
- term planning and collaboration when you're running a relay every year. Yeah. Coalition building is
- energy intensive and coming up with common
- goals and understanding between all of the partners is, again, it's labor intensive, and most of us
- are burned out, if not just exhausted. So it's being able to see that long-term need that's being met,
- being able to identify it, pull people together around that common need,
- or value, whichever you prefer, and keep people engaged and help them see the big picture and the big
- goal. Right, and I think that is also a strategy for making space to do that work up front to help us
- see we have distinct expertise and experience and perspectives and work, but we have common values
- and we share a common goal when we think about root causes. So getting on a page around that to help
- people understand why they're making the investment, I think will fuel them in making it. And I think
- also sharing that conversation with your community stakeholders to help them connect the dots and to
- support your work. Any other reasons why we're not doing it?
- Here are a few that occurred to us. So we talked about limited resources and competition. Turnover makes
- it really hard to stay on the same page. Even if you establish the same page, there are new friendly
- faces in the room every six months, three. So it's hard to feel like you're ever really getting your
- feet and running together when you always feel like you're trying to grow.
- So I've sat on coalitions for 28 years, and I think for a whole lot of them, I felt like I
- was a collaborator. But what I was doing was just being an ally, nodding and smiling and saying, I care
- about your work. We thought about it as, I support your work, you support my work. And what I want us
- to think about in terms of collaboration is seeing it as our work and how we can align around our common
- interests, around root problems.
- Does that make sense? So collaboration doesn't mean nodding and smiling and caring about each other.
- It means what do we do together for our mutual benefit? You want to talk about the rest?
- We all have things to say about this. Yeah, so we were thinking these things that get in our way. And
- I know that people in the room have that experience of, oh, we're sharing resources. We meet once a
- month. We're collaborating. We're building relationships. But what does it take to take that next step
- and really act?
- together within our shared interests. So we've been thinking about what it takes to address those barriers.
- And one of the early things that BTCC did was bring in strategic doing. And we're not actively using
- that, but I think a few of those principles of really holding ourselves accountable when we're members
- of coalitions, which is really challenging, to what are we doing to
- act on the shared interests that we have. And knowing that it is fragile because of all of the reasons
- that we brought up, the turnover, and that we have to really have an intentional focus on how we're
- going to act together, even when it's hard. So going back to that conflict aversion that we can have,
- pushing past that and knowing that
- If we're collaborating well, we're not gonna agree on everything. We're gonna have different organizational
- norms, different interpersonal norms, but really being able to address those and be intentional about
- how we can build power together. Say, I'm much newer to this work, and I feel like Colleen and Solomon are just
- fantastic collaborators, and I'm just kind of trying my best to be a good collaborator and learn and
- internalize these things. But I just feel like the meetings that we've had together, it's so nice. We've
- definitely all had meetings that could have been an email, or meetings that felt like, well, that was
- nice to see everybody, but nothing has changed, and there goes two hours. And it's really hard to quantify,
- well, what do you do differently? How can we not repeat this?
- And I think for me, not thinking about it as your work, my work, our work was really transformative,
- especially when, as we will see, there are just so many shared interests that most of us already have
- that if we can dig just a little bit and find those and connect over those, it's been pretty amazing
- to see kind of the cross-collaboration between groups that
- I wouldn't have necessarily thought would have a lot in common or have the same goals. So I also have
- a background in state government. So you want to talk about siloing and barriers to collaboration. Oh
- my goodness. Yeah, that's kind of the administrative design of government. And so I think it does take
- a lot of effort and intentionality to create those spaces. So I just feel like I got to give kudos because
- Solomon and Colleen are fantastic at it.
- a little kudos in there that applies to a lot of folks in these rooms as well. When we're at the State
- House, our role is really educating and informing on why things like paid leave are beneficial. And
- we've gotten to work with mentors who've really dug in. Colleen and Erin Macy have been doing this work
- a long time. And Olivia and I have had the benefit of really learning
- learning from them about how can we be working on this long-term goal. If you were in the last session,
- Colleen talked about how long we've been working on paid leave in Indiana and what does it mean to stay
- focused and continue to intentionally work together. So I think that is part of how we work intentionally together.
- Okay, have we convinced you? I want to go the other way. Now I've ruined everything. So what I want
- to do is to invite you
- lovingly, urgingly to stand. And we would like to do an activity that we created to help really explain
- in concrete ways to multi-sectoral community members why our collaboration can be so impactful. So here
- at the front of the room, three of the tables have crazy looking piles of colored spaghetti. If we can
- get nine people to stand around each of those tables, I'll be well pleased.
- I'll give you a moment to relocate yourselves. Nine people around each table. How are we doing? Do we
- have nine? OK.
- What is happening next is, so you all don't get to play the game, but I want your moral support, badly,
- and I want you to witness it and make observations so we can get your feedback at the end too, but if
- you can just kind of crowd round and see what's going on, that'd be terrific. Okay, so what we're gonna
- do now is hand out to you, to each of you, are going to get a social or public health problem,
- that you are working passionately to prevent and eliminate, okay? So we're gonna pass those out.
- Over here. Come on in. Okay. Does everyone have a public health problem ready to go? They all do at
- this table. Way to go, Sullivan. I'm very good at my job. I feel like you wanted to star there. It was
- in your voice. Can I ask you please, I'm going to pass around the mic, can you read the public health
- problem that you're working on so we all know the work that we're working to address as a community?
- Suicide. Sexual violence. Intimate partner violence. Substance abuse. Youth violence. Mental health.
- Cardiovascular disease. Homelessness. Child abuse. Excellent, thank you very much. Now if you look on
- the back of your public health problem, you're going to have a very brief list
- of risk and protective factors associated with that public health problem, okay? Risk and protective
- factors are the building blocks of what surrounds us, shapes us. So in your community, you know these
- are just a sample of risk and protective factors related to your public health problem. Now if you look
- down at your table, you're gonna see those risk and protective factors. And what I'm gonna ask you to
- do is grab a spaghetti thread that's attached to
- the risk of protective factors associated to your public health problem. Does that make sense? So just
- dive in there, help each other get the threads that you need. It will get tangly and that's A-OK. Yep,
- yep. So you wanna grab a string for each of the factors listed on your problem.
- What are we doing? Is it unfolding? Need another minute.
- You're not. It's OK if it's tangled. If you can't find one of your risk or protective factors, you can
- kind of just hold on to the person next to you who shares that factor. And when we have them all, I'm
- going to ask you to take a couple of steps back to expand your web. All right. Let's get some video
- action on that. OK. Fabulous. OK. Now I want to invite you to look around your web and notice
- Who are you connected to? What public health problems are you connected to through a shared risk or
- protective factor? Right, when you see these common connections where you're sharing a same colored
- thread, this is someone you could work with and that risk or protective factor is something that you
- could collaborate on together, right?
- Do any of the connections that you see surprise you? What are your thoughts? Yeah. So I have suicide,
- and I don't have a connection to protective factor of safe and accessible neighborhoods and green spaces.
- And I think green spaces,
- probably have some connection to prevention of suicide. So this activity is based on a lit review that
- we did a little bit ago. So it was based on the existing literature. But you will see, you have suicide,
- and you don't have safe and accessible green space. But your friend Donna, who is doing mental health,
- critically related to suicide, does have that threat. So I think for you to argue, I'm in. I'm in on
- your green space work. I'm with you.
- Anybody else? Any connections that you're like, huh, I wouldn't have thunk? Yeah. Coming about. I have
- the exact same connections as homelessness, and I have substance abuse. The same exact ones. Does this
- surprise us? It doesn't surprise us, but it's sad. Right.
- But sometimes this is both revelatory and a whole lot of duh. Like, yeah, yeah, obviously. Anybody else?
- Any connections surprise you? I'm surprised that my child abuse is not connected in any way with substance
- abuse or in a very limited way. That surprises me. Me too. Me too. And so I suspect, again, that was just
- something that hadn't been studied in the lit review at the time that we put together this activity.
- But again, I think you're right, and we can make that case. Yeah. Yeah. I have youth violence, and I'm
- a little surprised that I have every one of them. Why are you surprised by that? I guess not really,
- but I think it was that. It's glaring in my face. All of them. All of them.
- Great. Anybody else? Yeah. So I have cardiovascular disease and I just find it sort of interesting that
- I'm labeled in this way amongst the crowd of other things because it's more like a physical ailment.
- And so it feels like it kind of belongs in a different category, but it of course makes sense that it's
- related in terms of like resourcing to all of these other categories. And so I think that that's something that
- It's just kind of interesting to point out in this idea that you think maybe if you're addressing sexual
- violence or suicide or homelessness, that you're only addressing certain subsets of the population.
- But really, you're also then addressing other larger needs of the whole community with other issues
- related to things beyond what it is that you think you're addressing. Thank you so much. That is the
- entire why of the game.
- Right, because it might not surprise you to be sitting in a community coalition where you have pretty
- regular obvious allies if you're working on preventing child abuse. It makes sense for you to be friends
- with the youth violence people and the domestic violence people. But you need the cardiovascular health
- people too. You have a different outcome but a shared common interest if we think about the drivers
- of the problem. And I think the cardiovascular health people might have different pockets than we do.
- So we want their help, right? Over there? It's reminding me a lot, if you're familiar with UDL, or Universal
- Design for Learning, so kind of special education world, is if you make accommodations for a subset
- of people, it's actually going to help everybody. So thinking about prevention from that same approach
- is like, we may not be aligned to work with these certain topics, or that may not be our passion. But
- if we can do something,
- one of these protective factors specifically, it's going to help most people or the general population
- as well. Perfect. So underline that, highlight it, because we have to remember the barrier slide. Those
- things are going to push us back into our silos and make it harder for us to see universal design helps
- all of us. And therefore, I'm going to invest outside of my immediate to-do list in silo. Were there
- any other thoughts or are we ready to pivot?
- just comment that adverse childhood experiences, which we talked about in the earlier session, is connected
- to all of these, every single one of them. And I think it's pretty clear, you know, if you understand
- ACEs, why that is. Yes, thank you. I'm conscious that your arms are getting weary, so let's work together.
- You are all part of a community, part of a community collaboration, and you make the investment, you
- make the space, and you decide that we're gonna step outside of our silo, we're gonna collaborate together
- and take on one of our shared risk and protective factors, okay? So the first thing that feels available
- to you, you've got a little money, you've got community support, is increasing safe and accessible
- neighborhoods in green space, okay? So if you are currently holding a green thread, drop it.
- Okay, that went well. Everyone is enjoying the new park and garden. So you decide, it makes sense now,
- because we have this new space that brings people together in equitable and engaging ways, that we are
- gonna take on community support and connectedness. So if you're holding a light blue string,
- please drop it. I want you to think about that light blue string for a minute.
- Because I think people often think that community connectedness is just kind of squidgy hallmark, good
- things for people. But if you look around, every single one of you had it. It is a superpower. It is
- connected to everything. If we're having struggle, being connected enables us to reach out for support.
- And if we're blowing it, it makes it easier for the people who care about us to check us.
- So community support and connection is a superpower. Huzzah. OK. That went so well we liked it. We were
- into it. So we decide while we have fostered community support and connectedness, let's get after those
- norms that support aggression towards others. So if you're holding red or hot pink, drop it. Love it.
- And then we think about where places that norms that tolerate aggression towards others are fomented,
- see a lot of that being raised up in school and in political environments. So we decide that we're going
- to take on, what is that dark purple one? School and school connectedness and educational attainment.
- So if you're holding dark purple, please drop it. OK.
- As a community, you've done so many good things, you decide that you're going to take on the big mammer
- jammer. So if you're holding a yellow thread for poverty, go ahead and drop it. OK. Feelings, reflections.
- Way to go. Job done. It's before noon. Thoughts?
- Homelessness seems to be pervasive, and it gets so much money and attention. And I feel like some of
- these other categories are more important, but early childhood education and trauma prevention for children,
- just a thought that homelessness, well, it's important too, obviously.
- One of the strongest protective factors, preventive factors for adult homelessness is school connectedness
- for children. It's all connected, right? And so I think seeing that, when people are thinking about
- homelessness prevention in their community, they're usually addressing the immediacy, the problem, not
- thinking about how do people get here and what do we need to do in their early educational environment
- to support their academic success and ability to earn and learn.
- I guess I have a question. I'm wondering if the order with which you had us drop our strings was deliberate.
- I made it up as I went. OK, thanks. I guess I think that it's really interesting that you had us drop
- poverty last, because I think that we were all holding poverty. You were all holding poverty. But I
- also feel like poverty is one of the hardest things to actually address. But then it's also this like,
- real core underpinning and so many issues more than just the nine things that we have highlighted here.
- But yet it's such a hard nut to crack. So that felt kind of symbolic. And next time you do this activity,
- maybe you should be purposeful about that symbolism. Yeah. Well, I was kind of purposeful in connecting
- them in my head. I think also poverty, it's a risk and protective factor. But it's also a public health
- problem, right? So a lot of the other risk.
- protective factors that we addressed before that are the building blocks of poverty. So they were kind
- of incrementally getting a platform to enable you to work on it. And I think I also took it on last
- because it's the big mammer jammer and I wanted your communities to have time to build relationships
- and practice and experience before you took in the real headwinds. Yeah. You've just said that
- poverty is a public health problem. And public health departments cannot change poverty. In fact, it's
- one of the most impoverished of departments in our government. So it's kind of like chasing the tail.
- And if indeed we're calling it a public health problem, how would you expect
- public health to address poverty? Well, me calling it a public health problem was the world according
- to Colleen. I think it is. And it doesn't necessarily translate that it's your responsibility to take
- it on. I think to name it and to ask legislators to take it on
- Yes. And for the community to say this is a risk factor for all of the things that cost us, that are
- bad for our children, for our families, for our public health and our public safety. To say all of that
- is our role, I think. Is that helpful? OK. Yeah. This isn't a fully formed thought. So it's kind of
- a noodle, OK? Thanks for sharing it with all of us. Sure. No problem. Let's work it out.
- So it's actually kind of a good, thank you for, you gave me a little segue. So when I think about poverty,
- it's a giant problem. And if I'm going to run a campaign, I have to do an issue cut. And that issue
- cut, like if I'm going to organize a group of people to tackle something that I think is going to like
- lead me on the pathway to chipping away at the giant problem of poverty. I can't, we can't say like
- we're going to run a campaign and end poverty. That's not going to happen.
- But we could do an issue cut that addresses some of the pieces of it. So I feel like this exercise challenges
- me, I'll just speak for myself, to hold the big picture while trying to figure out what are the pieces
- and slices that can be done. That's just what I'm noodling on. I love that, and I'm an evaluator.
- So I have strange interests. But I also love a logic model and an easy one, a translatable one, a beautiful
- one, a clear one, so that when you are doing an issue cut, you can say to your stakeholders, here's
- why I'm working on this child tax credit or paid family leave, and here's the bigger picture that we
- are building together. Let's go, friends.
- Also, as I'm looking at all these protective factors, each of these eliminated reduces the amount of
- poverty. Because community connectedness, if you have to go to the ER and you have kids, you could face
- getting the kids taken away. And then you get further down into the hole, stuff like that. Education,
- it depends on your tax bracket, where you are. That is just like a symptom of poverty. It's like these
- are the steps.
- to take away big parts of poverty, things that I've personally experienced. And having a culture and
- people who support you and community and support and people who have your back, you don't have to worry
- about, oh, well, I'm not going to eat. Because my neighbor knows how to garden. Or my neighbor works
- at this place and gets a discount. And just connection.
- And poverty are so close together. And I just see them all tangled up with poverty. It's so huge. Yeah.
- I agree. It's impossible to disentangle a lot of these from each other. They travel in packs. Risk factors
- and protective factors travel in packs. It's really hard to disentangle.
- We originally wrote this game, my colleague Marie wrote this game in 2014. So we just did a refresh
- last year and updated our risk and protective factors and the issues that we're working on. And we really
- wanted to think about where to put racism. Or like is it a risk factor on the table? Is it a public
- health problem we wear around our neck? And we just found we couldn't disentangle it. There was no way
- to say it was isolated to one of the problems or its impacts were isolated. So instead we thought about getting
- So this is part of a toy box of games that we use. It's a giant binder, and we mail them all over the
- world. So I have to figure out how to make these things pretty small. So we're like, how do we add racism,
- we thought, just to put together a shroud to throw over the net when you're all holding it, to say this
- is the impact of racism, because it translates across all of the things. So thanks for that observation.
- Anybody else? I was thinking,
- Oh, sorry. In response to what you said and also just sort of making it into more of a pasta salad situation,
- because that's what I see the whole thing being, is that as you were saying, all these things lead up
- to poverty. That poverty leads to all these things, but all these issues also lead up to it. It's like
- an infinity symbol. It is the figure eight that's going on.
- And I feel like it's important to work at both ends. Yeah, it's necessary. It's critical to work at
- both ends. But I'm going to steal pasta salad, Donna. I'm using that in the future, credit you. And
- that is our point. Because it's all interconnected, when you dropped a thread, how did it feel? Ah,
- lighter? Did it feel different when you didn't drop a thread but other people did in your circle?
- Still lighter, right, because it's a pasta salad. Excellent. Thank you so much for playing, and God
- love you for cleaning up. Look, no one's ever done that before. At the end of the day, I'm like, oh,
- the madness. So if you want to take off your public health problems and just drop them in the middle
- of the table, we can all return to regular life.
- Well, as you take your seats, I want to endorse the world, according to Colleen, in poverty as a public
- health problem. I know I see some of my public health friends out there. And I think of public health
- as any time that a risk or protective factor is impacting community level, population level health.
- And so that's where sometimes,
- Yeah, there's some good arguments for why public health, definitely good arguments for why we need to
- invest in public health, but also why public health approaches are so exciting to us in terms of addressing
- multiple forms of social problems. So we want to highlight.
- one of the most exciting collaborations that we've gotten to do. And I'm going to turn it over to Olivia.
- All right. So I just joined my organization, the Indiana Community Action Poverty Institute, a little
- over a year ago. And when I joined, it was pretty expressly through grant funding to work on advancing basically
- positive outcomes for young children in the zero to three range, specifically through tax supports,
- financial supports. And so we were really interested in pursuing some kind of child tax credit policy.
- As Solomon's already talked about, my boss and Colleen go way back on paid family medical leave advocacy.
- And so together, we were really able to combine
- the amazing evaluation that Colleen did on the state's paid family leave program to give us, you know,
- Indiana specific inside state government employees that are using this benefit, supervisors who are
- talking about how fantastic it is for morale, for recruitment, for productivity. Families get to talk
- about how it's fantastic for, you know, child bonding and
- financial security and loyalty to your job and all sorts of these wonderful benefits. But then it's
- a matter of, like we've talked about, how do you, you know, we know this information is out there and
- especially when we can get really good focused work, how do you get that into the hands of people that
- make those decisions? How do you make this persuasive? And so, you know, a lot of times as an advocate
- trying to make this case, you know, I have to mention the data from California and nobody likes that.
- And so this has been kind of a game changer when we're having these conversations with lawmakers, because
- we can say, hey, we've collaborated with ICADD. They have this wonderful evaluation. You want to talk
- about ROI? We can talk about ROI. You want to talk about benefits to business? We can talk about those
- things. So I think it's just been kind of a game changer in how even we are received, and we can bring
- that to the conversation.
- But then even more in our larger kind of campaign, when we did this Babies in the Budget press conference
- at the start of session, it was just a really nice show of force among a lot of different groups. And
- I think the term that we heard a few different times was like, oh, like kind of strange bedfellows.
- But that also says something to your audience when like, well, wait a minute. These people, I don't
- necessarily think of them in the same bucket, but if all 10 of them are here to say that we need to
- support babies and young families,
- maybe there's something to this. So I think in addition to collaborating with the people that are very
- like-minded, if you can find some of those common risk or protective factors in groups, especially where
- you don't have as much overlap, and bring them all to the table, like we're talking about cardiovascular,
- that can go a long way. So we did this wonderful press conference, and another kind of really nice thing
- from that is we were able to highlight
- a bipartisan paid family medical leave bill that was also introduced. So that's the first time that
- they had a bipartisan paid family medical leave bill in the state house. So we were really happy about
- that. And then also a newborn tax credit. So that would have given $500 to parents the first time that
- they claim their child on their taxes. So it would work either through birth or adoption. And both of
- those, we were highlighted. We were standing side by side with ICADV. We were standing with United Way.
- with Lafayette Urban Ministries and also pediatricians and bringing in that public health angle and
- talking about one doctor saying how $500, that could be a safe sleep crib. That could be life changing,
- that could be life saving, because I think also sometimes we get pushback, or especially when we think
- about programs, they're like, well, what is this really going to do? Is that really going to make a
- difference? And I feel like that's something we really run into a lot is,
- OK, well, I guess you all kind of care about this. What's the big deal? And so being able to have such
- a wide variety of voices saying, this is important for public health. This is important for our workforce.
- This is important for mothers. This is important for mental health. The more voices that we were able
- to bring up there, I just felt like the message resonated that much more strongly. So it's been really
- wonderful also. I've been working with Solomon the past few months on health narratives.
- She's kind of kicked off this think tank within our Delta team that she was talking about where we're
- trying to really come up with timely ways to respond to a lot of these pushbacks as well. It is really
- difficult when you're trying to connect with someone over a value or you want to get on common ground
- and they say something and you just go, oh, I'm not working with that narrative. That's totally counter
- to either what I know or what I believe.
- And so how can we either challenge some of those that lead you down to just making a lot of assumptions
- or that get in people's way? So I feel like if anyone wants to geek out about dominant narratives, you
- should find us after, because we're really excited about it. But I think something that Solomon mentioned
- in the last presentation, too, is that we have to be very thoughtful and intentional about how we use
- those narratives. I think the example I was thinking is I'm not just going
- oh hey, you have a value, I'm gonna have that value too, so then we have a shared value and now we can
- get along. That's not the idea. It's always about what your individual or organizational mission, vision,
- your objectives, it's about finding something that's a genuine shared value, not just I'm gonna try
- and squeeze myself into the shape so that we can get along. I'm not trying to say that. But when we
- have to think about how dominant narratives work,
- alongside what you're trying to push back against, what narratives your partners are using. I think
- it's just a really cool, I just felt very honored to be part of this group during session because yeah,
- it was just a wonderful example of people coming together with different resources, different perspectives,
- all looking at one kind of simple policy mechanism that would lead to a lot of really good outcomes.
- I'm not sure what's next, so I'm gonna pass it off.
- Thanks, Olivia. Yeah, and I think those of you involved with BTCC know about the dominant narrative
- work. Colleen brought back dominant narrative training years ago. And it has been a really fascinating
- time for us to work on how do we find the shared values that don't uplift narratives that end up then
- getting in the way of our work.
- Yeah, we all of us big nerds about dominant narrative some others in the crowd there too. Yeah, so we,
- we talked about the barriers to collaboration.
- You know, we got to dig deep and then we got to go through Netty's spaghetti and look at the reason
- why it's in our best interest for us to work together on these shared risks and protections. But...
- We wanted to take some time to explore collaboration. So if you know us at all, you know that activities
- are going to be a big part of what we do together. And so we wanted to take some time for folks at your
- tables to really explore what collaboration looks like. So we wanted to give you a chance to either
- or write down or share, and maybe combine tables if you've got only a couple of people. A community
- problem example. This could be one where Cassidy and Ruth are at a table and they're like, oh, we're
- already working on one. Let's talk about this.
- Or it could be one where you're like, you know, this has really made me think about how I want to work
- on connectedness, especially across ex-provider in Monroe County. So we want to give you some time to
- sit together and talk about a shared risk or protection or social issue.
- and talk about where there might be room for collaboration. So I'll give you a minute to kind of resettle
- as you need to.
- So take some time to connect and then we'll let you know when you should choose someone ready to report out.
- 11.57, you end at 12.15. So at 12.04-ish, we're gonna give you the 10, five, and one half. I just, like,
- I was so in the, the neti spaghetti was so good. I was so in it that I, like, lost my track of absolutely.
- That's all right. That's what we're here for.
- I'll take you up on that bandwagon.
- In the name of wanting to make sure to hear back from you, take about a minute, make sure you have someone
- who can report out on either what you're working on or what your idea was. And then we'll have some
- time for discussion and Q&A. Thank you.
- So I've heard some of you are still doing introductions. So I'm going to give you more time, even though
- I was rushing you. So I'm going to take my cue from you. We'll do a walk around, and we get a sense
- that people already will report out.
- But then when I'm off stage, it's definitely like, we're done. And so I consider this to be, you know,
- I have my, what I call my low energy people. And it's like, you know, you and Dana and Tara, people
- I've known for a while. I'm like, okay, that's my safe person.
- OK. All right. Well, we're going to come back together whether you have something to report out or not.
- I see some people finishing up. Five, four, three, two, one. All right. So I'd love to hear, is there
- anyone who had a clear,
- possible collaboration that maybe you hadn't thought of before this. So we have discovered that we have
- a lot of intersecting interests and populations that we work with.
- And there are some training opportunities that we can support each other with. There's some outreach
- opportunities that we can support each other with. And it's all based off supporting folks where there
- are gaps in services for different things within our community. So that's super exciting. Yay. Thank
- you so much for that. All right. I see one back there as well. OK. So we talked about the
- Yes, it's basically systems of care. But thinking about like we have a provider perspective, we have
- like an organizing
- pull the community together perspective. And then we have like other service provision as well.
- So it's like, okay, so there's the pull together. So providers understand what services are available
- in the community. But then the collaboration being we take it to the people and say, oh, you can ask
- for that. We know where to find that. It is possible. It is available. And then it was pointed out that
- that helps us recognize where the gaps are. So we're not sitting around going, well, I think somebody
- does that.
- or not, or on either side, and that that makes it easier than to make change. Yeah. Hearing those gaps
- come up, and then working in this field for the years that I have been, I think it's been this endless
- work to keep track of who's doing what.
- and then where there are possibilities. So there's the part that's about connecting folks with resources,
- but then there's the bigger picture work of when we're talking about addressing shared risk and protections.
- And so, yeah, I like the identification of the gaps, but then also the how do we move beyond just connecting
- resources, but then
- these bigger actions that allow us to impact multiple social problems. Anything else in the room that
- came up? Oh, yes. We're going to heal poverty. So we want to reach out to the faith community and create
- a larger coalition of spiritual collaborators to try and help people really go back to core values
- that may help us to begin to address poverty at a root level. I love that. Yeah, I love that. New ideas,
- big ideas of what's missing and how can we pull together. All right, next. Yeah, I will go ahead and
- say it took our table a little while to get on topic. But where we were just starting to have really
- interesting conversation is about that.
- a connectedness of organizations and this idea that if we're all cogs in this wheel of assisting to
- really understand what everybody's doing, so then we can better connect needs and resources. Because
- it's not just about, I think, the idea of, oh, somebody comes to you and says they need something. There's
- also this matching. Somebody comes to you and says they have something. And then how can you connect
- what people have with what people need and that there's not really a consolidated
- a mechanism for doing that right now. And so it seems like a few people talked about that concept, but
- that was where we ended and was really interesting. Thank you. Well, I hope that you were sharing contact
- information, maybe connecting with somebody new or a new institution. I do want to offer just a little
- bit of time
- to kind of plant the seed in your head of what you'll do next. And I'll soapbox for one minute and say
- that there was a long time where getting together in a meeting, sharing resources, that felt
- like collaboration to me. And if you take nothing else from this room today, it's that there are so
- many stronger ways that we can come together and make change.
- And in fact, it's urgent and we need to, from child conditions to community state conditions. And so
- what does it mean to move those meetings, those regular meetings from, you know, we're sharing this
- resource and we know each other to, we're acting together in the name of the people that need us.
- Yeah, so that was my little soapbox. So hoping that what you do next really includes those deeper actions,
- those coalitions that are hard, but we address the conflict and we do them together.
- So we wanted to make sure to leave just a teeny bit of time. We have four-ish minutes for some questions
- or any follow-up that might be there, but we also want you to have our information. And so, yeah, be
- in touch with us. We're really, as you can tell,
- We're pretty passionate about this work. And if there's some way that we can support taking that next
- step in addressing multiple social issues through collaborative action, yeah, we're here to support
- you. Yeah, so I don't know if you all want to come up in case questions come up for all of us. One question
- that I had based on some of the
- presentation earlier was a distinction between genuine shared values and maybe contortion to fit into
- what could be construed as a shared value. So I was interested in conversations or lines of question
- or inquiry that pull out
- what a genuine shared value might be, because that might not always be easy to discern, or how in a
- coalition of multiple organizations, when there is a conflict between some genuinely held values and
- others that are shared, are there research-based ways to overcome those challenges?
- Well, I think we would need a whole nother session to address that. I will say I think that's really
- messy. I think that's what BTCC has been trying to do since the beginning. Folks came together. They
- said we're missing a lot in Monroe County. How can we use the public health approach to see how we can
- address multiple problems with solutions that we can work on together? How do we get that funded?
- How do we get support from our organizations? And it hasn't been easy. It's been messy. There's been
- conflict. Values are not always aligned. And that lack of alignment, I'm thinking of the last session,
- it doesn't mean that we have to align on everything in order to work together. So if we're really clear
- on what we are aligned on, I think there's a lot of work that can be done. I don't have an evidence
- space for you in this moment. Is there anything that folks want to add? But I actually would love to
- continue the conversation and find that. Yeah, I just want to say that's a great question. If you come
- up with an answer, please let us know. Because I think that can be really difficult when you and I define
- family differently. And so we go, oh my gosh, we can relate over this. And then you start getting to
- the details and you're like, wait,
- We've defined things in a way that maybe we can't get along, or this is not going to work,
- or we're not. So I think it is really hard to find out exactly what values you have in common.
- But I think, depending on what your issue is or who you're reaching out to, I think as long as there
- is some kind of nugget of genuineness,
- we're not just saying that suddenly financial security is a value I like because I'm courting a partnership
- with some group. Like, it should be something that you are, I feel like if you're starting with values
- that you already feel strongly about, then it's a little easier to kind of find and match where you
- can. So yeah, I think just having like a solid, I don't know, internal map of what values are guiding
- your organization's work
- will help you as you're trying to suss out, OK, what do other people, what are their motivations, what
- do they really want to see? Awesome. Please join me in thanking our presenters today. Thank you so much
- for a great session.