Adapting the CAM

To your Workplan, Project, Issue….

Community Action Model on the Web

English version in PDF               Spanish Version in PdF            chinese version in PDF

By now you may have attended the CAM training, have a copy of the binder, and know how to access the activities on line.  You are working with and/or funding CATs to implement the CAM.  Your project/workplan may be focused on a particular issue such as domestic violence or tobacco control or, if you are lucky, it may be broader in scope.   You are asking yourself, how do you get the project started, and provide guidance to the CAT coordinator and advocates to move through the five steps.  Here are some tips on how to do this.

Before Getting Started

 

You are a health educator, team coordinator or other community worker supervising, coordinating, and providing resources to community groups who will implement the CAM.  You can use the information in this manual to provide training and technical assistance.  Included in this manual are concrete examples from CATs that successfully implemented the process - some had resources and a timeline of 12-18 months; others had no resources and a 5-6 month timeline.

 

Some Definitions

• CAM: Community Action Model: the Five steps of the Model
• CAT: Community Action Team:  the group of CAT advocates from the community that implement the five steps of the process. Also known as CAT members or participants.
• CAT Coordinator: The team coordinator who may or may not work with a community based organization and serves as the day to day liaison with the community advocates.
• DPH Monitor/Staff: health educators who provide training, technical assistance, funding and all other support and guidance!

Preparation

 

Read through this module.  Read Community Action Model: Creating Change by Building Community Capacity (Introduction & Overview).

Familiarize yourself with the big picture. 

Evaluate your resources, timeline and project goals. A project with ample funding and timeline may be able to complete a more involved action.   A short term project with little funding may be able to complete an immediate action, or identify an action to be completed with future funding and then complete a few of the activities towards it. Come up with a potential timeline for completing each step.  

Work with the project to set up administrative systems.  Look at the sample workplan (attachment a), budget & invoice (attachment b), Memorandum of Understanding (attachment c), and Request for Application (attachment d).  You may use some of these documents if you have funding to provide to the CAT. If you use a workplan, be sure to include regular technical assistance/training meetings with the CAT coordinator and CAT to brainstorm and problem solve at each step of the way. Be sure to have the project include stipends or payments in the budget for the advocates.  Look at the sample skill inventory and evaluation tools (attachment e)  and make your evaluation plan. Assure the CAT coordinator that the workplan can change as time goes on.

         STEP 1:  Train, Name and Focus 

Your funding source or project may already indicate which general issue you will work on (such as tobacco control, violence prevention, food security, ethnic and racial health disparities, etc.).

1. Overview of the Issue 101:  Begin by putting together a general presentation for the CAT coordinator and the CAT advocates about your issue.  Be sure to include in the presentation: activities, fact sheets and information that addresses the background of the issue. Outline the history of the issue, what has been done about it, and the underlying social justice root causes; social, economic and corporate links; and local/global policy issues related to the issue you are addressing.  For example, if addressing violence prevention include information about root causes and risk factors for violence, including alcohol, oppression, poverty, witnessing acts of violence and the role of the gun industry in influencing local policies.

2. Next train the CAT coordinator and CAT advocates about the 5 steps in the CAM. Look at the sample curriculum About the Curriculum and How to Use it  (Introduction and Overview) for a sample training outline.  This will give your CAT team an idea of how the 5 steps flow together and what they will be doing for the course of the project.

 

IMPORTANT: In preparation for this training look at the activity entitled:  Actions for Health (Step  4).   List 10 potential actions that address your issue and 5 activities.  Adapt the activity cards to reflect your actions/activities.  This will help the CAT coordinator & advocates with concrete examples of the potential outcomes they may achieve. Check out the additional lists of actions/activities. 

 

3.      Work with the CAT coordinator to assist the advocates in choosing their project focus. Adapt the activity entitled Naming the Issue (Step 1) by creating a code(s) that reflects the issue that the CAT will address.  Be sure to include the variety of local/immediate and root causes that contribute to the issue being addressed by the CAT. Use source documents if available (eg: proposals). Use the questionnaire in Naming the Issue to help the CAT focus on a particular area of interest.  For example: during this step, a CAT working on the broader area of violence prevention could decide to focus specifically on addressing violence on public transportation. DPH staff/monitor and others who provide TA, training, funding and other support to CAT coordinators and advocates play a crucial role during step 1.  Advocates can get bogged down or may try to choose their outcome or activities before selecting their focus area.  The role of DPH staff /monitors should be to bring clarity, keep the CAT on task and move & guide them to a more narrow focus!

 Step 2:  Define, Design, & Do Community Diagnosis

Now that the CAT advocates have chosen a focus to address, use the activity entitled:  Designing your Diagnosis (Step 2) to help the CAT advocates begin their work. To begin the diagnosis the CAT should decide what questions they want answered, and design tools to get their answers. They may want to use a form like this:

Focus:  Food  in Schools

This process can take a matter of weeks to months. If the CAT decides they need to get more information about their focus area by going to the library or on the internet, interviewing community residents, and counting toy guns in stores you will work in partnership with them to design and do each of these steps. For example, you may set up a training on how to do research on the internet, how to come up with a survey, and how to interview. You may consult with them on what would be an appropriate number of people/stores to survey to get a true representation of the issue in your community. It’s important to strike a balance: the diagnosis must be designed by the advocates and be user friendly; it must also lead to results that you can use for the next steps.  If possible, the DPH Monitor/staff should seek technical assistance in the selection of tools and methodologies.  If an existing consultant isn’t available, seek assistance from your supervisor. Check out the sample tools that CATs have developed and used.

 Step 3:  Analyze Results of Community Diagnosis

This step is where the “Ah Ha” typically happens.  If you have the resources to work with an evaluator, this person can work with the CAT to input data, analyze data and come up with startling statistics.  These stats can be put in charts, tables and summary forms and used in media advocacy or for testimony with policymakers.  Once data is analyzed, the CAT coordinator and advocates discuss their findings, list possible recommendations and choose an action in Step 4. Here are examples of the findings (analysis/synthesis) of data collected.   

In Step 2, Advocates…..	What they found was…
Surveyed residents & children in a park near a toxic site.  They researched what a “superfund” site is and who is responsible for clean up of the toxic site.	50% of children playing in the park had crossed into the toxic site thru a broken fence; 85% surveyed didn’t understand the technical language on the warning sign; 92% would still take their kids to that park because it was the only place to play.
Youth advocates surveyed 350 youth, tried to buy Bidis (Indian cigarettes) at 100 stores, and researched them on the  internet.	50% of youth surveyed thought bidis were not harmful to health. 24% were able to buy them in stores (twice the rate for Kools). Bidis contain tobacco and cause cancer and other health problems.. 70% of bidis purchased had no warning labels.
Advocates surveyed stores to see what kind of toy guns were sold, research laws re: sales of realistic toy guns.	50% of stores sold no toy guns. Stores that sold the most toy guns were large chain stores. Local laws forbid the sale of realistic toy guns. Most retailers were not aware of the local laws.
Advocates diagrammed 11 stores for stocking practices; did a map of the neighborhood, surveyed residents as to shopping practices, interviewed merchants	The 3 most common products in the stores were alcohol, tobacco and packaged (junk) foods, many were tobacco subsidiary company brands. Some estimates were that only 2-5% of store space was dedicated to produce: 47% of neighbors surveyed said that stores were hard to get to (barrier to getting healthy food).  That residents must change buses 3 times to get to the nearest supermarket (outside the neighborhood)

Step 4:  Select Action & Activity and Implement

Do Actions for Health (Step 4) again.

If the CAT hasn’t already chosen an action that meets the three criteria outlined above, they should do that now.  Remember, if the CAT has a short timeline/no resources, they can choose an action to accomplish with future funding and resources and then dedicate existing time and resources to implement activities related to that action.

Use the Planning for Health cards (Step 1) and do the CAT Map (Step 4) to help the CAT come up with an action plan to accomplish the action/activities. As part of the action plan, the CAT may want to do a variety of activities such as outreach (health fairs, conferences, meetings with decision makers, schools and community, etc), organizing, model policy development, media advocacy, advocating for your action, presentation skills, and others.   Make a training timeline that coincides with the implementation of each of these components of the action plan.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 5: Maintain & Enforce the Action or Activity  

Once an action or activity has been designed and implemented you want to ensure that it is maintained.  If it involves a policy or change in organizational practices, you want to ensure that it is enforced.  Many times this involves building on previous work.  Here are some examples of how CAM’s have done step 5.

Bro’s Against Guns : Brother’s Against Guns was funded with a 5 month minigrant ($5,000) to implement the CAM to address violence prevention.   Project advocates surveyed youth in San Francisco’s BayView Hunter’s Point area and ask about sources for guns.  They found that getting a gun was easy, that the neighborhood was oversaturated with guns and that many young people easily get weapons from gun shows at the nearby “Cow Palace” exposition hall.  By the end of the project, advocates had presented their findings to numerous groups including Gang Free Communities Initiative and listed a variety of actions/activities to address this problem.  Once the grant was over, the advocates continued on to sponsor a protest of gun shows at the Cow Palace and received media coverage of the protest.  They are now seeking additional funding and looking at the possibility of advocating for a state policy to prohibit gun shows at the Cow Palace. 

Ban on Kraft/Nabisco in the Schools: Another youth project researched the amount of Kraft/Nabisco products that were sold and provided in the city’s schools.  They successfully got the School Board to adopt a policy called the “Commercial Free Schools Act” that banned these products from the schools because they were subsidiary products of Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro cigarettes. For step five of the CAM, youth advocates followed up with schools by meeting with the food purchaser and doing presentations to students to ensure that the ban was implemented and understood.