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Getting started

another meeting?

community level change

Lifecycle of a Rural Coalition:

Stories if the Ups and Downs, Lessons Learned,

and Invisible Progress

assessments

recruitment

SPF? SUPRTS? DFC?

Sarah Meyers, BA, CPP

Coalition Director (aka, Professional Community Member)

data

community readiness

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MINERVA

REPORTING

Background in social psychology

Took me a while to love rural!

11 years in prevention

Found my niche

Why I chose to stay

About Me

Community level change, here I come!!! Surely there won’t be any barriers!

$3 PER

PERSON

For those who don't know me, this is who I am. When I was a teen growing up in the community I now serve, I didn't know what I wanted to study, but I knew I wanted to get the hell out of Dodge. I wanted to SEE the WORLD! Or at least a different part of the state.

I had a great experience studying psychology in college. My favorite class was Social Psychology. We read about how people in groups think. I remember texting a friend one day after class when we learned about the blue eyed/ brown eyed kid study saying This is what I want my career to be. I don't know how it will be, but this is what I love.

After graduating college, I moved back home after an unsuccessful job search. My dad found the job for coalition coordinator from one of his coffee regulars, and tell the rest of the story.

I didn't always love rural, but I will come back to that.

I have been doing this for 10 years. Found my niche and things are going well.

Why I chose to stay and why I now love rural. Cost of living: I am too cheap to live anywhere else. Walkability is good for my mental health. I go on walks in the dark. I can walk almost everywhere and I have no commute. Having no shopping and no restaurants is good for my bank account!! And being able to fit into my clothes. Feels like I don't have to participate in extreme capitalism.

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MINERVA

REPORTING

One or two people come off of mute. What’s your rural prevention story?

$3 PER

PERSON

Coalition

Coupe

For those who don't know me, this is who I am. When I was a teen growing up in the community I now serve, I didn't know what I wanted to study, but I knew I wanted to get the hell out of Dodge. I wanted to SEE the WORLD! Or at least a different part of the state.

I had a great experience studying psychology in college. My favorite class was Social Psychology. We read about how people in groups think. I remember texting a friend one day after class when we learned about the blue eyed/ brown eyed kid study saying This is what I want my career to be. I don't know how it will be, but this is what I love.

After graduating college, I moved back home after an unsuccessful job search. My dad found the job for coalition coordinator from one of his coffee regulars, and tell the rest of the story.

I didn't always love rural, but I will come back to that.

I have been doing this for 10 years. Found my niche and things are going well.

Why I chose to stay and why I now love rural. Cost of living: I am too cheap to live anywhere else. Walkability is good for my mental health. I go on walks in the dark. I can walk almost everywhere and I have no commute. Having no shopping and no restaurants is good for my bank account!! And being able to fit into my clothes. Feels like I don't have to participate in extreme capitalism.

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“You’re the one who is paid”

“We don’t have those problems here”

(Doesn’t Make Eye Contact, Walks Away)

“Why do we need another meeting?”

Starting A Coalition: It’s Hard!

“How about we?”

(the most influential person at your meeting gets everyone all frothed up about a new project that is not even allowable by the grant but everyone loves it and expects you to do all the work)

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Think of a group that you are a part of that you LOVE to participate in. What is keeping you there?

Come off mute or put them in the chat!

Group Discussion

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Now, think of a group that you recently had to quit. What were the reasons that made you quit?

Come off mute or put them in the chat

Group Discussion

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Reflect- what we foster in our meetings or groups to avoid these common pitfalls and make our meetings a place people WANT to come to

Group Discussion

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No Vison

No Skills

No

Incentives

No

Resources

No

Action Plan

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Nobody Wants To Volunteer

(The Advisory Board Problem)

Getting Too Technical Too Fast

Nobody Wants to Get Involved in Your Chaos

They Can Smell The Grant Requirements From Here

(and they stink)

Major Lessons

Here is where I want to be blunt with you.

1. Chaos. Think of the groups you recently had to quit. The major reasons people leave groups is disorganization, confusion, chaos. Remedies for this? Be simple!

2. Flows right in- too technical. If you went to a meeting and were handed the CPWI action plan would you come back? SIMPLE, SIMPLE, SIMPLE! Make your own templates, don't over-explain. Protect your coalition members abilities and energies

3. Tell story of the advisory board. This change took 2 years. It was needed but nobody saw it.

4. The grant requirements. This road is a circle and they all connect. They can smell your desperation. if someone emailed you in a panic to meet some kind of requirement of THEIRS, would you care? Recruiting your 12 sectors too fast, trying to get programs started too fast, etc. They create a froth of chaos and it stinks.

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Invisible Progress =

Small Consistent Efforts

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Building-Wide Program Training

Built a Foundational Shared Understanding

Incremental Attitude Change Over 10 Years

Everyone

Seems to

“Get It”

Overnight

Failed Implementation, BUT Implementation Nonetheless

Seeds I didn’t know I planted - Invisible Progress

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Keep

Hitting

That

Pinata!

Invisible Progress

Can you think of any invisible progress you may be making right now?

Come off mute or put in the chat

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“Dogs are furry and have 4 legs, so these are dogs”

Mental Models

Everyone has 2 options when presented with new information:

1.Assimilate it into an already existing mental model - like dogs

or

2. Accommodate new information separately and start to form a new model - like horses

A brain-bending investigation of why some people never change their minds—and others do in an instant—by the bestselling author of You Are Not So Smart

What made a prominent conspiracy-theorist YouTuber finally see that 9/11 was not a hoax? How do voter opinions shift from neutral to resolute? Can widespread social change only take place when a generation dies out? From one of our greatest thinkers on reasoning, HOW MINDS CHANGE is a book about the science, and the experience, of transformation.

When self-delusion expert and psychology nerd David McRaney began a book about how to change someone’s mind in one conversation, he never expected to change his own. But then a diehard 9/11 Truther’s conversion blew up his theories—inspiring him to ask not just how to persuade, but why we believe, from the eye of the beholder. Delving into the latest research of psychologists and neuroscientists, HOW MINDS CHANGE explores the limits of reasoning, the power of groupthink, and the effects of deep canvassing. Told with McRaney’s trademark sense of humor, compassion, and scientific curiosity, it’s an eye-opening journey among cult members, conspiracy theorists, and political activists, from Westboro Baptist Church picketers to LGBTQ campaigners in California—that ultimately challenges us to question our own motives and beliefs. In an age of dangerous conspiratorial thinking, can we rise to the occasion with empathy?

An expansive, big-hearted journalistic narrative, HOW MINDS CHANGE reaches surprising and thought-provoking conclusions, to demonstrate the rare but transformative circumstances under which minds can change.

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Are penguins heavy?

Does your community have a mental model for prevention?

“National Prevention Week”

A brain-bending investigation of why some people never change their minds—and others do in an instant—by the bestselling author of You Are Not So Smart

What made a prominent conspiracy-theorist YouTuber finally see that 9/11 was not a hoax? How do voter opinions shift from neutral to resolute? Can widespread social change only take place when a generation dies out? From one of our greatest thinkers on reasoning, HOW MINDS CHANGE is a book about the science, and the experience, of transformation.

When self-delusion expert and psychology nerd David McRaney began a book about how to change someone’s mind in one conversation, he never expected to change his own. But then a diehard 9/11 Truther’s conversion blew up his theories—inspiring him to ask not just how to persuade, but why we believe, from the eye of the beholder. Delving into the latest research of psychologists and neuroscientists, HOW MINDS CHANGE explores the limits of reasoning, the power of groupthink, and the effects of deep canvassing. Told with McRaney’s trademark sense of humor, compassion, and scientific curiosity, it’s an eye-opening journey among cult members, conspiracy theorists, and political activists, from Westboro Baptist Church picketers to LGBTQ campaigners in California—that ultimately challenges us to question our own motives and beliefs. In an age of dangerous conspiratorial thinking, can we rise to the occasion with empathy?

An expansive, big-hearted journalistic narrative, HOW MINDS CHANGE reaches surprising and thought-provoking conclusions, to demonstrate the rare but transformative circumstances under which minds can change.

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Conclusion

Understand that people need time

You are making invisible progress!

Go at the

right speed

Build Relationships

Sarah Meyers

SMeyers@Qbhs.org

I’d love to hear from you!