6.2 Ensuring Continuity
Planning
for continuity and sustainability means more than simply keeping
your project going, it also refers to the practices, values
and relationships that become permanently entrenched in individuals,
groups, organizations, and the community at large as a result
of your project. It ensures that the positive changes your
project has brought about will have a lasting effect.
Why Should You
Ensure Continuity?
Seeing
the work your project has accomplished flourish and continue
in your community is undoubtedly one of your goals. You have
worked hard to organize, gather information and resources,
raise awareness and interest, and make positive change in
your community. You have created something of value, and you
don’t want to see it disappear.
How Do You Ensure
Continuity?
Your goal
in planning for continuity is to convince people and institutions
to make long-term commitments to promoting mental health,
a concept that is not easy reducible to tangible products
and services.
That means
you have to take a step back from the daily details of running
your project and look at the big picture. This will allow
you to compile some solid evidence that your efforts are worth
people’s continued support.
Answering
the following questions will help your group prepare to approach
people in your community and beyond to begin or renew their
support for your efforts.
What
have you accomplished to far?
It’s
a good time to step back and survey how far you’ve come.
By seeing your successes and reexamining your mistakes,
you will better understand where you are and where you’re
going.
Is
the community behind your efforts to sustain the initiative?
Is
there ongoing enthusiasm and excitement about your project
in the community? Do community members feel strongly enough
to continue to support your efforts?
Have
your goals and objectives changed?
Your
group came together originally because you wanted to take
action on a certain mental health issue in your community.
Is your group still pursuing the same goal? Has the focus
of your project shifted?
You
might need to re-examine your objectives at this point,
to see if they are consistent with your current focus
and activities.
How
have you promoted you efforts?
What
kind of publicity has your project received? Who knows
about you? What have you done to spread the word about
your efforts?
How
is your initiative structured?
Do
you have a number of committed members? Do you have regular
meetings? Have you developed policies about how meetings
should run?
Once you’ve
answered all these questions, you’ll be prepared to approach
a variety of people and organizations to ask them to work
with you to sustain the work your initiative has accomplished.
Who Can You Work
With To Ensure Continuity?
Disseminating
your findings broadly not only ensures that your mental health
promotion project has high visibility in the community and
beyond, but it also helps to ensure that your project continues
beyond the funding or pilot period, and becomes a part of
the life of the community.
There
are several potential sources of support, including local
citizens’ associations and institutions, that can play a role
in establishing your initiative as a part of community life.
Citizen
associations
One way
of ensuring that your initiative has an ongoing identity and
presence in the community is to become associated with a recognized
citizen organization. This association could also result in
additional funding for your group. A variety of citizen groups
already exist in most communities, including service clubs
such as Rotary and Kiwanis, local business associations such
as the Chamber of Commerce, and self-help groups.
By affiliating
with a local citizen association, your mental health promotion
project could benefit enormously from the credibility and
connections that that association has developed in the community.
It would allow your project to gain committed and growing
support from within an established organization, while at
the same time not jeopardizing the non-service orientation
of mental health promotion efforts.
Service
agencies
Organizations
such as health and social service agencies can also be powerful
community partners. They often have access to many networks
and resources that could benefit your project, and could themselves
benefit greatly from the Iearnings of your project.
There
are, however, a number of caveats to forming these relationships.
Professional service systems are designed to facilitate professional-client
relationships. While these relationships are useful in many
circumstances, they do not reflect a mental health promotion
approach, in which people define and control the methods and
direction of community work. The agency may want the initiative
to be staffed by one of its professionals, a move that might
open the door for service-oriented methods to take over the
community development approaches that are integral to mental
health promotion efforts.
If you
plan to affiliate with local institutions, you will need to
make a special effort to use the language and methods of mental
health promotion and to avoid the language and methods of
agencies and services.
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The
Community Health Boards, the primary community partner
in the Helping Skills project, recognized the value
of the informal capacity building dimension of the project.
At the end of the pilot, both of the Health Boards made
the commitment of resources to sustain the existing
groups and deliver further training.
The
participants who became involved in Phase 4 of the Helping
Skills program had clear ideas of how they would use
their learning upon returning to their agencies. This
indicated the commitment of these agencies to implementing
the project.
There
were community mental health workers who planned to
share their new skills with volunteers and clients.
There were public health nurses who planned to deliver
the program to other rural nurses. There was a prison
social worker who would offer the training to prison
guards. In this way, the Iearnings of the project became
a part of the culture of a variety of community associations
and institutions.
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