April 15, 2006 Volume 2, Number  2

 

1.  Start Breaking the Silence!

2.  Getting Started

3. “Pitching” Local Stories

4.  The Word’s Getting Out!

5.  Success Stories

6.  On the Calendar

1. Start Breaking the Silence!

The companion Silent Treatment Action Guide, Breaking the Silence, is available both at www.silenttreatment.info and through the mail (look for your copy this week).   Breaking the Silence is designed to help you maximize the Silent Treatment project to define your message, establish or build valuable, effective community partnerships and efficiently target the media to get the word out about your issues, work and services.

If you’d like more brochures and action guides, send an email to sroff@pajournalism.com with “material request” in the subject line.  Please include a list of the materials you would like, your mailing address and a brief description of how you plan to use the materials. 

2. Getting Started

The media are vital to the success of any advocacy or outreach campaign because they can help you get the word out to your target audience(s) and increase participation in any activities you might sponsor around the series or for National Recovery Month. They also can help you achieve your larger mission of promoting addiction prevention, treatment and recovery in the communities you serve. In many cases, they are the single most effective conduits for delivering your message to the people you want to reach. It is important to set forth a media strategy before making initial contact with editors or reporters. You want to make sure that you identify your key audiences, define your messages clearly and concisely, engage the appropriate media outlets for reaching your audiences, and provide the sort of background materials that reporters need and expect.

Alerting the editors of your community papers to the series is the starting point; encouraging the members of your community to read the articles and embrace the topics is an entirely different matter. The best way to accomplish this is to help people see the relevance of these topics in their lives. There are many ways to do this by looking for local tie-ins.  The ideas and opportunities are endless, and right in your own backyard.

For the complete section on “Getting Started with Promotions” in the Breaking the Silence Action Guide, click here.

2. “Pitching” Local Stories
Silent Treatment offers the opportunity to spotlight your community’s angles on the issues presented throughout the series.  Here are some tips to get you started:

• Find out which newspaper section and/or radio or television broadcast covers stories like yours and identify the editor(s) and news directors for that section.

• Find out how much advance notice the media outlet needs to run the series and schedule your meeting before that deadline. Newspapers often publish submittal information in their sections.

• Research the newspaper’s or station’s online archives or library to determine if it has published stories on the topic you are planning to pitch. Editors and producers will appreciate that you know what the paper already has reported on these issues.

• Before the meeting, sit down with a colleague and rehearse your pitch. Include any community partners who will join you in the meeting.

• Keep your message simple and concise. Try to keep your introduction to three or four sentences that will tell the editor why he should be interested in publishing your story. Give more details as the conversation continues, but think of your opening as a way to heighten interest and establish that the story is newsworthy.

For the complete section on “Pitching Local Stories” in the Breaking the Silence Action Guide, click here.

3. The Word’s Getting Out

Thanks to groups like yours that have helped spread the word by including information about Silent Treatment in your communications and linking to the Silent Treatment Web site, we’ve already started a national momentum to improve addiction treatment and recovery. The proof is in the numbers: Over 1,000 people already have visited Silent Treatment online and over 400 individuals and organizations are receiving the E-newsletter … and counting.  A number of organizations have begun to include information about Silent Treatment in their E-newsletters or have forwarded the URL for each new issue on to someone else.  We’ll continue to use the Web site and the E-newsletter to discover and share with everyone what organizations and groups around the country are up to.  You can help by sending your ideas and success stories to sroff@pajournalism.com or visit www.silenttreatment.info and click on Share Ideas to share online.

And don’t forget, Silent Treatment web buttons, banners and logos are available at

http://www.silenttreatment.info/downloads.htm

4.  Success Stories

The National Association of Drug Court Professionals invites you to join in celebrating May as National Drug Court Month.  A Field Kit is available from the group to help your program participate in this year’s theme, “Successful Partnering for Recovery.” Since the first drug court was founded in Miami-Dade County in 1989, the field has grown to include more than 1,700 drug courts across the nation.  In February 2005, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) published an extensive review of drug court research, concluding that most adult drug court program participants demonstrate lower recidivism, re-arrest and conviction rates than comparison group members.  To download the NADCP Field Kit, click here.  To download the GAO report, click here.

SAMHSA's National Clearinghouse on Alcohol and Drug Information (NCADI) offers Successful Strategies for Recruiting Training and Utilizing Volunteers: A Guide for Faith- and Community-Based Service Providers.  The publication is a handbook designed for community groups and faith-based organizations seeking to maximize the skills of their volunteers, expand their services to the community, and enhance their effectiveness.

Information provided includes five chapters that outline five steps for implementing an effective volunteer program - planning, recruiting, training, managing and evaluating. Principals discussed can be applied to any field and should help organizations developing a volunteer program. To download the guide, click here.

6.  On the Calendar

Check out our comprehensive calendar at http://calendar.silenttreatment.info. It contains over 750 treatment- and recovery-related events across the country.  Click any of the events to get more information and confirm dates and times.  To have upcoming events included in our calendar, please send an email to sroff@pajournalism.com.

May is a busy month in the field of addiction treatment and recovery.  Here’s a sampling of what’s going on nationally:

Please forward this newsletter to friends and colleagues who may be interested in addiction treatment and recovery issues. Send details on coming events, successful projects, new findings or useful ideas to share to sroff@pajournalism.com. If you missed past issues, visit the archive section at http://www.silenttreatment.info/enewsletters.htm.

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