Product instruction booklet

(Art direction, writing, design, testing)

Report design

2 Sound Partners for Community Health

LOCAL VOICESF O R H E A L T H Y C O M M U N I T I E S

10 Making Sense of Mental Health

The stigma around mental illness is alive and well across this country. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, only one-third of Americans who have mental health problems seek help. In the South, the story is worse, in part due to poverty and lack of health insurance, but also because of misinformation that often leads suffer-ers to try to “pull themselves together and get over it.”

In Birmingham, Alabama, a Sound Partners project set out to overcome the barriers to discussion of mental illness and provide information about available services. To communicate a commonsense understanding of mental illness, these partners called their effort Making Sense of Mental Health.14 They wanted to reach the people who were least likely to seek help for problems like depression, particularly African Americans and those in the growing Latino community in central Alabama. They also wanted to urge policy-makers and community leaders to lead the charge for better understanding of mental health issues and more services.

The partnership produced a range of programming and events that went far beyond traditional media to reach deep into the community. The Birmingham team brought together traditional and nontraditional players: a main-

stream public radio station (WBHM), a counseling center (Oasis), a School of Public Health (University of Alabama) and a group of commercial African-American radio stations that aired a soap opera called Bodylove. The partnership worked because, as Tanya Ott, news director for WBHM, noted, “We very clearly defined who would be responsible for what, then let each do what it does best.”

Oasis and the producers of Bodylove started a lively and energetic collaboration as they reached out to the African-American and Latino communities. WBHM, the public radio station, was on a separate but parallel track, producing weekly features, web pages and e-briefs for its audience of opinion leaders and policy-makers. The part-ners honored the “editorial firewall” between the public radio station and the other key players. WBHM would not cover Oasis or Bodylove, for example. Despite the firewall, collaboration between WBHM and the School of Public Health grew and evolved. Reporters increasingly use the school as a source of expertise, and Ott is now the grand rounds lecturer on media and health.

A Traditional Public BroadcasterWBHM airs classical music and news from National Public Radio. Its news department consists of three journal-ists—a news director and two reporters—with a focus on producing well-crafted features rather than spot news. Sound Partners offered WBHM the opportunity to immerse its reporters in the issue of mental health. Programming included features, interviews, radio postcards, a half-hour documentary and a call-in show, the first the station had done in several years. It aired the features during National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

The station effort went beyond broadcast reporting. Each feature had its own web page, which included the

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

MAKING SENSE OF MENTAL HEALTHStigma is nothing more than ignorance that can only be cured by knowledge.—Kathy Sawyer Alabama Mental Health Commissioner

Top right: James McCarty, Jr. plays SaulBottom left: Vanessa Anderson performs as Rozalyn

Phot

os b

y Yok

o Ka

wam

ura

PR

OFI

LE

Internal page design and production for report

Internal page design and production for report

Sound Partners for Community Health 11

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

MAKING SENSE OF MENTAL HEALTH

script, audio, photos, extended interviews and links to more information. The station “back-announced” the programs, referring listeners to the WBHM website for earlier reports. An e-mail list for weekly e-briefs began with a small pool of 75 subscribers and grew over a year to about 600, including policy-makers from nearby states and Washington, D.C. The e-briefs consolidated research and stories about mental health issues and added links for more information.

Using Entertainment to Improve Mental Health Awareness “Okay, y’all—just drop whatever you’re doing and turn up your radio, ’cause it’s time for Bodylove . . . ”

So goes the enticing introduction to Bodylove, a weekly radio soap opera written by students at the School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham. The brainchild of Dr. Connie Kohler, an associate professor in the division of health behavior, Bodylove is the name

of a fictional beauty salon that’s the center of the action. As with any other soap opera, the goal for Bodylove was to create a compelling plot that kept the audience tuning in from week to week; but the inside game was to deliver health messages that were both folksy and medically accurate.

The program began in 2004, and focused initially on diabetes and hypertension. When Sound Partners came to town, student scriptwriters added a mental health story line that included a focus on stigma, fear and lack of information about depression. The action centered around a character who became depressed and dealt with it by drinking and skipping work. She was told by another character to just pray. She attempted suicide and was hospitalized, which offered numerous opportunities for commentary on how to handle mental illness.

Bodylove aired on 16 African-American radio stations across the state, most of them small, locally owned com-mercial stations with a strong community presence. The School of Public Health purchased the airtime, and local stations added their own discussion and call-in shows. After each program, in-studio panelists chatted about the story, took listeners’ calls, expanded upon the health themes and offered links to local health resources.

At the Birmingham station, WJLD, the oldest African-American station in the state, the call-in was hosted by a well-known and respected Baptist minister, Ronnie Wil-liams, who discussed each week’s story with experts in the studio. Guests answered questions, relating the discussion to the characters in Bodylove.

A Women’s Center Poised to HelpOasis is a counseling center that provides therapy and counseling to low-income women in central Alabama. Oasis, too, wanted to change negative perceptions about seeking counseling. Its Sound Partners work began with focus groups, which helped the center frame depression around issues of stress and positive health. The center de-veloped posters and brochures in English and Spanish and hired a Spanish-speaking therapist to work with Latinas.

Kathy Kane, an Oasis therapist, took on the main coordinating role for the Sound Partners effort. She spoke about depression and stress management at community meetings and churches. She reached out to professionals

WZZATuscumbia

WHIY MoultonWEUV Huntsville

WEUP-FM Huntsville

WANA Anniston

WJLD Birmingham

WTSK Tuscaloosa

WJUS Marion

WHBB Selma

WKXN WKXKMontgomery

WTLS Tallassee

WKXN WKXKGreenville

WKXN WKXKTroy

WTFMC Monroeville

WJDB Thomasville

WRJX Jackson

BODYLO♥E BROADCAST AREAS

Ronnie Williams on the air as the host of Bodylove

Phot

os b

y Jo

anne

Edg

ar

Color tints indicate broadcast areas.

Adapted from a map created by the Department of Geography and the School of Public Health, University of Alabama Brimingham

Sallie Bodie, the author, and Lawrence “Brad” Bradford

Empowerment Issue June 2006

LOCAL VOICES

First Voice: a powerful audio or video story told by the person to whom it happens. Usually the storyteller is one who has not been on the airwaves before and is a member of a group not often heard.

Look into the La Vida! Challenges for Healthy Living project and you’ll find the meaning of empowerment in the stories of transformed people who reached out to empower others.

Consider the series that followed Kim Bowman in her effort to quit smoking using the Colorado Quitline. Bow-man shared her struggle—as it took place—with a large radio audience. Shelley Schlender, KGNU Community Radio coordinator of La Vida! said Bowman’s courageous narrative hit home with many listeners. One woman said the show taught her how to support her husband who had quit smoking and was floundering. “I know how to help. This is enormous. This is thrilling,” she wrote. Schlender added, “The power of the story came from capturing the voice of a real person as she struggled with her addiction and all that the cigarettes meant to her.”

Another first-voice radio saga recounts the difficulties Magdaleña, a disabled legal immigrant from Mexico, has in getting her bills paid by Medicaid, though qualified for the program. Her granddaughter Diana narrates and conducts the interviews with her grandmother. During the second show Euvaldo Valdez, a Medicare ombudsman, comes on the scene to sort through the stack of bills and complicated paperwork. Valdez makes call after call to straighten things out, until, finally—seven months later—the bills start getting paid.(Continued on the reverse side.)

If You Can Walk, You Can Dance Lawrence Bradford has taught dance to more than 5,000 stu-dents from all walks of life and all ages. Brad, as he is known, is the founder of the Smooth and EZ Hand Dance Institute in Washington, D.C. His organiza-tion partnered with public radio station WPFW-FM Pacifica and the D.C. Department of Health in Listening4yourHealth—A Wellness Call to Action! This ambitious Sound Partners proj-ect gives practical solutions to get D.C. citizens to move more, eat better, and manage stress. Central to the project are a variety of movement clubs that anyone can join. And dancing is a great way to move.

Brad says anyone can learn to dance, that it’s like walk-ing with rhythm. He believes dance empowers people as they learn to enjoy themselves and gain confidence. Read the whole story online in the Local Voices PDF version at www.soundpartners.org •

(Continued on the reverse side.)

Phot

o by

She

lley

Schl

ende

r

HealtHy Impact! Boosts cultural competency

Healthy Impact! in Denver, Colorado has reduced the barriers immigrants face in accessing health care by helping newcomers develop skills in managing their own health care needs. At the same time, the program has made policy and training inroads that are raising the level of cultur-ally competent care provided by health practitioners.

A community advisory committee studied health disparities between cultural groups and then issued a series of recom-mendations, some aimed at the legisla-tors, others toward health educators.

In an effort to make a system-wide change, Healthy Impact! study results were used to produce a CD which was distributed statewide to physi-cians, encouraging them to take a free, online cultural compe-tency course. Susan Thornton, project director, is proud of the result. “We featured local opinion leaders on the CD . . . As an incentive, we gave continuing education credits for the class, too,” she says.

FIRST VOICE STORIES empower

Individuals and CommunitiesPh

oto

by G

ale

Pete

rsen