Marketing, Recruitment, and Program Participation

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Marketing, Recruitment, and Program Participation
A Meeting of Childrens Bureau-funded Healthy
Marriage Grantees in Florida

• Sharon McGroder Ph.D. Umi Chong M.A.
• The Lewin Group
• February 6, 2006

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Overview of Agenda

• Why Healthy Marriage and Child Welfare?
• Brief Overview of Grantee Projects
• Presentation of the Program Participation
  Framework
• Program Participation Successes Bottlenecks
• Lunch Marketing Marriage Education to Child
  Welfare Workers
• Moving Forward Grantee Action Planning
• Part ISmall group during Feb 6th Orlando meeting
• Part IIOn-site visit later in the week

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Why Healthy Marriage?

• Marriage research
• Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
  Reconciliation Act of 1996 (TANF law)
• Healthy marriage movement
• ACF Healthy Marriage Initiative (HMI)
• To help couples, who have chosen marriage for
  themselves, gain greater access to marriage
  education services, on a voluntary basis, where
  they can acquire the skills and knowledge
  necessary to form and sustain a healthy marriage.

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Why Child Welfare and Healthy Marriage?

• Healthy marriage needs of the child welfare
  population
• Foster/adoptive couples (voluntary CW popn)
• Referred for suspected CAN (mandatory CW popn)
• At risk for entering child welfare system

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Proposed Federal Funding for Healthy Marriage
Programs

• Amount
• 150,000,000 per year for FYs 2006-2010
• For
• Healthy Marriage (100,000,000 per year)
• Responsible Fatherhood (50,000,000 per year)

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Proposed Federal Funding for Healthy Marriage
Programs

• Allowable healthy marriage activities
• Public advertising campaigns
• Education in high schools
• Marriage education, marriage skills, relationship
  skills programs for non-married pregnant women
  non-married expectant fathers.
• Pre-marital education and marriage skills
  programs for engaged couples and for couples or
  individuals interested in marriage.
• Marriage enhancement and marriage skills training
  programs for married couples.
• Divorce reduction programs that teach
  relationship skills.
• Marriage mentoring programs
• Programs to reduce the disincentives to marriage
  in means-tested aid programs

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Proposed Federal Funding for Healthy Marriage
Programs

• Responsible fatherhood activities
• to promote marriage or sustain marriage
• to promote responsible parenting
• to foster economic stability by helping fathers
  improve their economic status
• to promote responsible fatherhood

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FL Healthy Marriage Initiative

• www.myfloridafamilies.com

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FL HMI Grantee Projects The View
from 30,000 (5 minutes)

• Project
• Cluster/Funding Stream (SSF or PAAM)?
• Project Title?
• Duration?
• Overarching Goal of Project?
• Target population?
• Geographic service area?
• Service delivery target numbers?
• Intervention
• What is the intervention/what services are
  provided?
• Which healthy marriage curriculum is the project
  using?
• How is the intervention provided? Who delivers
  the intervention?
• What was the rationale for intervention?
• Partnering Organizations
• What organizations are key partners?
• What are their roles?
• Referral Pathways
• What organizations are key referrals sources?
• What are points of intake and the referral
  pathways into your project?

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Program Participation Framework

• Target
• Population
• Who are they?
• Where are they?

• Marketing Recruitment
• Advertise
• Outreach to clients
• Outreach to services providers
• Referrals

• Enrollment, Intake, Registration
• How enroll/register?
• How many points of entry, or intake?

• Client Participation
• Individuals? Couples? Families? Children?
• , participating (at all) in HM program? In
  each grant service?

• Completion
• , completing all program sessions?
• Why miss sessions?
• What helps them complete program?

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Program Participation Framework

• The Program Participation Framework (PPF) is a
  general schematic that illustrates stages of
  recruitment into HMI program
• Stages include
• Identifying a Target Population
• Marketing the Program
• Client Recruitment
• Client Enrollment
• Client Participation
• Program Completion

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Program Participation Framework

• Target
• Population
• Who are they?
• Where are they?

• Marketing Recruitment
• Advertise
• Outreach to clients
• Outreach to services providers
• Referrals

• Enrollment, Intake, Registration
• How enroll/register?
• How many points of entry, or intake?

• Client Participation
• Individuals? Couples? Families? Children?
• , participating (at all) in HM program? In
  each grant service?

of Clients

• Completion
• , completing all program sessions?
• Why miss sessions?
• What helps them complete program?

Program Duration
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Program Participation Framework

• The PPF also (roughly) depicts the flow of
  clients through your program.
• Ideally, there would be no drop-off
• At each stage there is opportunity for client
  participation drop-off
• Target population - Not broad and clear enough
• Marketing Recruitment - Content of marketing
  message and processes are not appropriately
  tailored for the intended audience
• Enrollment - No clear and established processes
• Participation - Logistical burden is high and
  touch flexibility low
• Completion Program is not relevant and not
  meeting the needs of the client/population

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Program Participation Framework

• Target
• Population
• Who are they?
• Where are they?

Environment FL/ Local Community

• Marketing Recruitment
• Advertise
• Outreach to clients
• Outreach to services providers
• Referrals

• Enrollment, Intake, Registration
• How enroll/register?
• How many points of entry, or intake?

Your HMI Program

• Client Participation
• Individuals? Couples? Families? Children?
• , participating (at all) in HM program? In
  each grant service?

• Completion
• , completing all program sessions?
• Why miss sessions?
• What helps them complete program?

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Program Participation Framework

• There are different contextual issues and
  linkages that affect the success of program
  recruitment and each stage
• Contextual Know the environmental issues
• Florida Child Welfare Issues
• Local Community Issues
• Social Service Organizational Issues
• Linkages Ensure there are established seamless
  linkages as well as understanding
• Between each stage to the context
• Between stage to stage

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Program Participation Framework

• Target
• Population
• Who are they?
• Where are they?

Environment FL/ Local Community

• Marketing Recruitment
• Advertise
• Outreach to clients
• Outreach to services providers
• Referrals

• Enrollment, Intake, Registration
• How enroll/register?
• How many points of entry, or intake?

Your HMI Program

• Client Participation
• Individuals? Couples? Families? Children?
• , participating (at all) in HM program? In
  each grant service?

• Completion
• , completing all program sessions?
• Why miss sessions?
• What helps them complete program?

Feedback Loop
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Program Participation Framework

• Incorporate learnings into
• Refine existing activities
• Tweak the message
• Target different audience (e.g., new champions,
  new people, new organizational level)
• Identify new activities
• What have other sites been doing?
• What areas have been off limits?

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Program Participation Framework

• PPF allows you to diagnose your program
• Pinpoint where your program is succeeding
• Pinpoint where your program is encountering
  challenges
• Questions to think about in diagnosing
• Where are the biggest drop-offs or bottlenecks?
• What aspects of the program are you getting great
  results?
• What is the rate limiting step in the service
  delivery process?
• What are the structures and processes you wish
  you had?
• What are the contextual issues at play?
• What learnings have you fed-back into your
  program?

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Identifying Successes () and Bottlenecks (-) on
PPF

• Diagnose your program using blank the PPF (10
  minutes)
• Use to indicate where you are having success
• Use - to indicate where you are having
  challenges
• Each site will share and explain their programs
  diagnosis (10 minutes per site)
• This will be an opportunity to share experiences
  and learn from other grantees

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Program Participation Framework

• Target
• Population
• Who are they?
• Where are they?

• Marketing Recruitment
• Advertise
• Outreach to clients
• Outreach to services providers
• Referrals

• Enrollment, Intake, Registration
• How enroll/register?
• How many points of entry, or intake?

• Client Participation
• Individuals? Couples? Families? Children?
• , participating (at all) in HM program? In
  each grant service?

• Completion
• , completing all program sessions?
• Why miss sessions?
• What helps them complete program?

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Marketing Marriage Education to Child Welfare
Workers

• Dr. Dana Christensen
• University of Louisville
• Recipient of a Child Welfare Training grant
  from the Childrens Bureau

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Marketing and Recruitment Strategies

• 7 core components of Marketing and Recruitment
  strategies
• Outreach
• Information Dissemination
• Involvement of Clients in Marketing Efforts
• Expanding the Target Population
• Networking and Collaboration
• Conducting In-service trainings
• Refining Content of the Marketing Message

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M R StrategiesOutreach

• Involves reaching out to organizations that
  touch or serve the target population
• Outreach efforts can be divided into two
  categories
• Outreach to organizations
• Effective if theres buy-in (i.e., believe that
  HM services can benefit their clients) and
  minimal burden
• Outreach to clients
• Effective if program is advertised in venues
  where target population is/ frequent/ get
  information

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M R StrategiesInformation Dissemination

• Involves distributing materials to publicize the
  program to increase recruitment
• Can be targeted to organizations and clients
• Effectiveness comes from
• Materials are tailored to the understanding of
  the audience and convey relevance or benefits
  gained
• Use dissemination modes that maximize cost
  benefit i.e.,biggest bang for the buck

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M R StrategiesInvolve Clients In M R Efforts

• Involves using former or current clients as
  champions or ambassadors by giving testimonials
• Effectiveness comes from
• Allowing organizations or potential clients to
  hear first-hand accounts of benefits or positive
  impact
• Client willingness is high, client crisis state
  low
• Being strategic in planning and tracking
  potential opportunities

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M R StrategiesExpand the Target Population

• Involves expanding target population beyond the
  child welfare population
• Effectiveness comes from
• Being broad enough to rule in and capture all
  potential clients including adoptive and foster
  couples
• Not losing HEALTHY MARRIAGE focus dont dilute
  HM
• Getting ACF approval and working with evaluators
  

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M R StrategiesNetworking and Collaboration

• Involves establishing linkages and partnerships
  with relevant organizations and opinion leaders
  within the community
• Effectiveness comes from
• Engaging in and offering mutually beneficial
  relationship make it a win-win connection where
  collaboration leads to serving mission of BOTH
  organizations/programs

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M R StrategiesConducting In-service Training

• Involves educating front-line and administrative
  staff about benefits of HM services to the
  well-being of their clients
• Effectiveness comes from
• Communicating the relevance of HM services
• Extent to which making a referral or
  incorporating HM services into case plan is not
  burdensome
• Extent to which HM services is kept on the radar
  screen of case workers
• Support top-down and bottom-up

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M R StrategiesRefining Content of the
Marketing Message

• Involves carefully crafting and fine-tuning the
  message in a positive manner
• Effectiveness comes from
• Communicating the benefits or outcomes from
  receiving HM services
• Presenting the program as a great opportunity,
  education, or enrichment
• Including who, what, where, how to contact as
  well as the schedule and agenda of workshops,
  sessions, etc.
• Noting it is FREE!!!

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Action PlanningPart I

• EXERCISE
• Please develop at least 1 action step to overcome
  each bottleneck
• Develop Action Step
• Identify Roles and Responsibilities to achieve
  Action Step
• Articulate Immediate Next Steps to Implement
  Action Step
• Pick a person from each group to report out
• REPORT OUT

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Action PlanningPart II

• Lewin will be conducting subsequent site visits
• Feb. 6th - UCF (Orlando)
• Feb. 7th - HMFF (Jacksonville)
• Feb. 8th - CHS and BBCBC (Tallahassee)
• Include key referring partners, DAs, CBCs if
  possible
• Complete EVALUATIONS!!!