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.