1. Media Advocacy Interactive Module 3
Target Length: 30 minutes
Participants: Psychiatry residents and fellows
Facilitators: Media Relations staff, attendings
Scenario:
You are a psychiatrist at a community mental health center (CMHC) in a moderately
sized town. SAMHSA has been coordinating a national mental illness
destigmatization campaign, but asks local community mental health centers to
develop their own campaign tailored to their local community/communities. You
are involved on the community outreach team at the CMHC. The team is asked to
develop a communications strategy for a community destigmatization campaign.
Questions to consider:
What is your objective? What do you want your campaign to achieve?
Who is the intended audience? Are there more than one?
What is the message you want to convey?
What kind of communications “products” can convey your message?
What channels may be useful in disseminating these communication products?
What is your budget? How would budgetary constraints affect your communications
strategy?
What is your timeline for development, roll-out, termination?
How can you collaborate with other community organizations to enact this
campaign?
How will you know if your communications strategy is effective?
Directions:
Have audience split up into groups of 2-3 members. The groups will be given 5-10
minutes to develop a communications strategy.
Groups will hand-in their outlines to a facilitator. Facilitator should briefly review
the strategies and ask for a group to volunteer to review their strategy. Facilitator
should evaluate the strategy and further explore with residents strengths,
weaknesses, unexplored concerns/issues. If time permits, facilitator may review
other strategies and provide constructive feedback about strengths and weaknesses.
The last ~5 minutes at the end of the session should be used to solicit residents’
experience, evaluate challenges and/or surprises.