2004 Model Practice Application (Public)

Shoulder to Shoulder

A collaboration between health agencies in the Twin Cities metro area

The “Shoulder to Shoulder” program is a social marketing campaign developed by city and county public health agencies in the Twin Cities metro area and the University of Minnesota Extension Service. The goal of Shoulder to Shoulder is to reach 100 percent of Metro parents of teens with the good advice about parenting their adolescents. Over 70,000 booklets were sent directly to parents. Additionally, booklets were distributed to school districts and community agencies. The workgroup has designed the web site to be user friendly and a resource for parents and community organizations. All of the materials that are a part of the Shoulder-to-Shoulder program are available and can be downloaded from the website.

Shoulder-to-Shoulder focuses on positive parenting. The goal of this program is to help parents adopt strategies that are proven to reduce risky behaviors. The project began by the workgroup asking local parents what they wanted to know about parenting and how they wanted to receive information. To do this, the workgroup worked with several consultants to conduct and analyze the data from 19 focus groups with 159 parents in the Twin Cities metro area. They over sampled from low-income communities and from particular cultural groups to ensure that these perspectives were represented in anticipation of creating campaign components that met specific needs. The materials were then designed from the ideas shared by the parents and parenting professionals. The workgroup met with numerous professionals in the community to share the campaign materials and talk about how they can collectively support parents of teens. A universal message that was noted by professionals is the lack of resources they have to offer parents of teens and the need for a Metro-wide infrastructure to provide parent education, resources, and support for parents of 11 to 15 year olds. This project is different in several ways. Shoulder-to-Shoulder used a social marketing campaign, which was developed by parents rather than experts. They opted to reach out to parents of younger teens who are not in crisis. Shoulder-to-Shoulder has used a multiple-pronged approach by sending parents hard copies of materials and by developing a website where the same materials can be downloaded. Flash e-mails have been sent out to over 60,000 parents with parenting tips. The materials have also been translated into Spanish.

Local public health and its partners were instrumental in the creation of this project. There has been collaboration with multiple partnering organizations who were at the table from the beginning of this project. Public Health agencies from the seven county metro areas (County Health Departments: Scott, St. Paul-Ramsey, Hennepin, Dakota, Washington; and City Health Departments: Minneapolis, Bloomington, Edina, and Richfield,) and the University Of Minnesota Extension Services continue to form an active workgroup. Due to the extensive partner involvement from the beginning, the partners had a committed ownership of the project and were dedicated to the success of the project. An advisory group and a workgroup were set up early to develop the project and review materials and concepts. The advisory group grounded the workgroup in the reality of parenting and the project goals.

The project was originally funded by pooling resources from the partners’ Tobacco Endowment funds and from in-kind staff time. As a result, this project had a budget of $400,000 to spend for materials. Funding was dedicated to a focus group, consultants, campaign materials, printing, mailing lists, and other miscellaneous costs. Weber Shandwick Advertising developed the project campaign materials as a result of the resource pooling. In June 2003, the Tobacco Endowment funds were eliminated. Consequently, any funds which were not spent by December 31, 2003 had to be returned to the state. During a project planning meeting, a decision was made that schools and community agencies in the metro area would be given 100 copies of the parenting booklet at no charge. Shoulder-to-Shoulder determined the cost for those ordering over 100 copies of the parent booklet or for those who were outside the metro area. Revenue from the booklet sales funded the reprint of the parenting booklets and website maintenance.

This project is continually growing and maturing. In the beginning, the objectives were relatively small. The project’s original objective was to develop a parenting prevention tool for parents that was user-friendly and supportive. Once the tool was developed, objectives were broadened to include developing and maintaining a website. The workgroup continually returns to the data provided by parent focus groups and to the original objective. The Spanish booklet and parenting classes evolved from that data. The workgroups current efforts include distributing Spanish materials and seeking new revenues to support the project.

In addition to revenue from the booklet sales, the workgroup is also pursuing grant funds as there is currently not enough funding for the project. Shoulder-to-Shoulder has a strong commitment from stakeholders and partners as a result of the quality of the project and their involvement from the beginning.

Shoulder-to-Shoulder has been driven by cooperation and teamwork. Without the cooperative working relationship, which existed between the professionals, parents, and public and private organizations the project would not have been a success. The materials were based on input from parents. This is why the materials have been so well received. The project is using several methods to gather data from the parents served. Following each of project presentations an evaluation is given to participants for content feedback. Numbers of workshops, presentations, individual meetings, website hits, e-mails, and booklets are tracked. When the Tobacco Endowment funding was eliminated, rather than lose funds, the project was given a shortened deadline to pay for what was needed. Very little would have changed in the overall program and material design. What could have been done differently would be to set up an evaluation process earlier in the project. Shoulder-to-Shoulder is using several methods to gather data from the parents served. Program staff are in the process of developing an online survey to measure the effectiveness of the website and the project. It is fairly early to evaluate the project for changes in parenting norms. However, the anecdotal data from users of the materials is extremely positive.

Engaging and empowering parents as experts would be one of the most important elements for others to consider when adapting the materials. Parent focus groups were frank about not wanting experts to tell them the how to parent.