The mission of your coalition is best accomplished by branding yourself and your organization as the subject matter expert on your topic for your state.

Where branding is about crafting an identity, marketing is about spreading a message. The primary message of an awareness month is raising awareness of your issue. It gives your organization a natural reason to contact the media and promote your coalition. You can visit http://www.healthfinder.gov/nho/nho.asp to see the awareness months for health and social topics.

The NSVRC provides great materials for Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). You can find information about child abuse prevention awareness month at http://www.childwelfare.gov/preventing/res_guide_2010/.

Stacie LeBlanc, Executive Director of the New Orleans Children’s Advocacy Center, uses a multi-prong approach during April’s Child Abuse Awareness Month. The CAC plants trees in honor of the children who die as a result of abuse and neglect in the Trees For Life program. The CAC also has pinwheel plantings, display tables and handouts at Children’s Hospital, and prevention training for the public, professionals, and hospital staff.

If your national association does not provide awareness month materials, develop materials in-house or retain a consultant to develop relevant materials. While fall prevention is an issue of national importance, with a generally agreed upon awareness day (the first day of autumn), there are no nationally produced materials. So, the State of Louisiana contracted with me to develop materials (http://drthea.com/pages/downloads/louisiana-fall-prevention-coalition/) and provide grassroots coalition training to leaders from across the state.

Use the materials in spreading the awareness message. While marketing, look for ways to share your brand.

• Always include your logo on all of the materials: advertisements, PowerPoint slides, brochures, fact sheets, etc.
• When sponsoring presentations, have large signs with your logo placed on both sides of the presenter.

Look for ways to include information about your brand in every aspect of your communication.

• Craft a signature line for your e-mail relevant to the awareness month and include your logo.
• If you have a facebook page, post information about the awareness month. During the awareness month, have updates at least once a week.
• Develop sample facebook status updates and twitter updates for fans to share during the awareness month that include a shortened URL link to your website.

Your brand should be consistent both internally and externally. You want to share the same message with your member centers as well as the community. Look for ways to assist the local centers for the awareness month.

To share the awareness month message, schedule regional presentations across the state. When I’ve been retained to do this, we call them road shows.

• In each region have 3 presentations targeted to different groups: community members, social service professionals (for CEU credit), and your member organizations’ employees. Regionalization increases participation and allows for the local centers to develop their branding also.

Host a preparation workshop in a month or two before to prepare the centers for a coordinated effort for the awareness month activities. Grassroots coalitions are most effective when there is high-quality effort on the local level.

• Share information on effective presentation skills and how to work with their local media.
• Coach the center directors to always mention the state coalition in their interviews.
• Recommend that the centers have a copy of your logo (with an active link) on their websites.

By planning in advance and coordinating efforts statewide, you will be able to successfully raise awareness and position your coalition as the experts for your state.

To Think About:

What steps can I take before the end of 2010 to assure success of my awareness month in 2011?

How To Use An Awareness Month As A Branding Opportunity For Your State Coalition is a post from: dr. thea lobell: communication skills speaker, trainer, and retreat leader

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2. A Double Life Analogy For Child Abuse Victims

During metamorphosis, the tadpoles lose their gills and develop lungs. They also lose their tails and grow limbs.  As adult frogs, they live on land.  When one sees a frog in the yard, it’s hard to believe that it had to start its life in the water as a tadpole. The skill sets required for each organism is different dependent on the life stage.

When children are in an abusive environment, the focus is survival and self-preservation. They are like the tadpoles, underwater, trying to avoid becoming a snack for a predatory fish. Some of the skills required for children during abuse include: avoidance, trying to diffuse the situation, and looking out for siblings.

I once worked with a very young girl who would make a sandwich and eat in her closet to try to avoid nightly beatings. She hoped that her mother would pass out before remembering she had children. In working with this little girl, I reinforced her positive coping skills and how much those skills would serve her in her life.

Children who have been abused and neglected need to be reassured that the abuse episode of their lives is over. While the tadpole did not have any control over being in the water, the frog has legs and is able to roam wherever she likes.

The overwhelming majority of tadpoles do not survive to become frogs. Clients who have survived physical, sexual, and emotional abuse need to be reassured that they are strong and that they are not victims, they are survivors just like the tiny percentage of tadpoles who become frogs.

In working with adult victims of child abuse, I’ve seen individuals who have difficulties leaving that part of their life behind. I think if we can help clients see that before they were one way- vulnerable and weak. Now that they have undergone their own metamorphoses, they are strong, with a completely different life.  Just like the frog is completely different than the tadpole, they now have new lives where they can flourish.

A Double Life Analogy For Child Abuse Victims is a post from: dr. thea lobell: communication skills speaker, trainer, and retreat leader

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Once we have something around for more than a week it becomes invisible to us. Take a moment and look around your office with fresh eyes as though you’re seeing it for the first time.

Is there clutter? Are you displaying knick knacks from years of gifts you didn’t want to put in your home? Do you have piles of paperwork around? This is the time to clear your office of clutter, knick knacks, and paperwork.

If you are working with victims of child abuse, sexual assault, or other violence, think about it from their perspective.  They have just gone through probably the worst event in their lives. They need to be surrounded with order and calmness. Disorganization and piles of paper convey a message that someone is overworked and stressed.

Your goal is to make your office a sanctuary for victims, a place where when they walk in they feel comfortable and ready to share about their experience. After you’ve cleaned your office, there are 2 required items you need to purchase or bring from home: a small lamp and a living plant.

Overhead lighting is cold and impersonal. Even adding a small $9.99 lamp adds a needed coziness and warmth to the space. Lastly, add a small house plant. Having something that’s living adds another dimension that fosters a comfortable environment. Plants are inexpensive at home improvement stores, so you can purchase a new one as the plant begins to age.

While the goal is to create a warm and nurturing environment for victims, you will be pleasantly surprised at how much better you feel and how much more you get accomplished in this newly streamlined space.

if you have something around for more than a week it becomes invisible is a post from: dr. thea lobell: communication skills speaker, trainer, and retreat leader

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