The assessment of your community begins once a Local CHAP Coordinator has been hired and oriented to the CHAP Program. The assessment will take between one to three weeks to complete. Once the following objectives have been completed, recruitment begins.

Objectives

• 1. To undertake an Environmental Scan of the community.
• 2. To develop a Community Profile of the organizations, agencies, associations, working groups, media outlets and opinion leaders in the community.
• 3. To initiate a Collaborative of Organizations.
• 4. To develop a CHAP Communications Plan that is tailored to the community’s needs.

Communities are like people – they come in all shapes and sizes, and each one has a preference for doing things a certain way. For this reason, the approach taken to mobilize, motivate, and raise the collective awareness of an issue will vary across communities.

Mobilizing your community is a crucial step in the CHAP implementation process. The more people talk about an issue, the greater the chances are for involvement and benefit. As well, the more individuals are given an opportunity to participate in an event, the more likely they will be to work towards its success.

Mobilizing your community around CHAP is:

• A means of generating interest in, and commitment to, CHAP
• Communicating with key people and agencies about CHAP
• Encouraging people to be involved in CHAP’s development and implementation

Taking time to research, understand and communicate with your community will ease the implementation process. A community approach to implementing CHAP depends on engaging key contacts identified in the community and exploring ways for individuals and organizations to participate.

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5.1 Undertake an Environmental Scan of the Community

The first step in mobilizing a community and raising its awareness of CHAP and cardiovascular health issues is getting to know how it works and who makes things happen. You will need to find out what key agencies, working groups, community champions and physician opinion leaders exist.

An environmental scan is researching how a community works. The research is done through phone calls, internet searches, visiting community groups and organizations. The end-result is a community profile that is essentially a database of:

• Relevant organizations, agencies and foundations.
• The community champions – the “movers and shakers” or the individuals who make things happen in the community. Many communities recognize their volunteer leaders, and often name someone “Volunteer of the Year”.
• Physician opinion leaders. Make a list of potential physician opinion leaders by asking each person you speak who they feel is the local physician expert on cardiovascular health issues. This might be one physician or several.
• Researchers or administrators who are involved in community and health-oriented projects.
• Seniors Groups and Centres.
• Family Health Teams.
• Community Health Centres.
• Chronic Disease Prevention Program Manager of Local Public Health Unit.
• Heart Health Coordinator at the Local Public Health Unit.
• Community Support Agencies.
• The opportunities that exist to help spread the word about CHAP. For example, newsletters of relevant groups, possible speaking venues, briefings at relevant organization meetings, local websites and City Council public meetings.
• Media channels to communicate with the community about CHAP. For example, names of newspapers and their city editors, television stations and their key people, radio stations and key reporters, community newsletters, and public places to post posters.

The following is a list of places and tools that can be used to help gather the information needed to develop a comprehensive community profile.

• Phone Book: The Yellow Pages and www.411.ca can help you put a list together of agencies and organizations that you may want to speak with to obtain support for CHAP.
• Internet: Looking at your community’s website will help you to gain insight into how the city’s administration works. “Inside City Hall” is an icon that will often outline the City’s administrative structure, working groups, and initiatives. “Mayor’s office” is another icon that will most often outline some the more prominent projects underway. These places may provide an opportunity for CHAP to be highlighted. City websites often list agencies, working groups and foundations in the area.
• Mayor and Mayor’s Council: Phone the Mayor’s office. The Mayor may be able to direct you to the relevant groups to recruit volunteers, or how to best disseminate information on CHAP within your community. Perhaps there is a health promotion-working group within the City structure. Or, the Mayor may be willing to have city councillors briefed on CHAP at an upcoming council meeting.
• Hospital Administrator(s): Find out who the hospital administrator(s) is in your community. Contact them and arrange for a meeting to introduce CHAP. They may also be helpful in finding the physician opinion leader, volunteers, and possible speaking engagements. Ask the Hospital Administrator if it would be possible to post the launch of CHAP to the “What’s New” section of the Hospital’s website.
• Volunteer Groups: Review the list provided below. These are the groups from which volunteer peer health educators may be recruited.
  • Senior’s Centres, Senior Clubs, Senior Groups
  • Volunteer Centres, Directories, or Referral Services
  • Hospitals (Volunteer Groups)
  • Churches (Community Church Group)
  • Non-Profit Organizations and Service Clubs (For example, Alzheimer’s Society, Diabetes Association, Canadian Legion, Heart and Stroke Foundation, Kinette and Kinsmen Club, Knights of Columbus, Lions and Lioness Clubs, Recreation Centres, United Way, VON and the YMCA/YWCA)
  • Volunteer Recruitment Fairs (For an older audience)
  • Community Centres
  • Retirement Homes
  • Non-Profit Organizations and Service Clubs
  • Public Buildings
  • Businesses / Shopping Centres
  • Other Health Care Offices
  • Personnel Directors
  • Speakers' Bureaus
  • Chambers of Commerce

Remember that all of these potential resources may not be available or appropriate for every community. The Local CHAP Coordinator must determine what resources are best suited to CHAP’s mandate for their individual community.

Once the environmental scan is completed, all of this information should be used to compile a Community Profile. Prioritize those groups or individuals identified in the community profile to know whom to contact first.

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5.3 Initiate a Collaborative of Other Organizations

While conducting the environmental scan of your community, you may have found that there are other collaborative organizations that already exist in your community who have mutually supportive activities. For example, the Diabetes Initiative, the Ontario Stroke Network, the Healthy Communities Fund, the Local Ontario Heart Health Program and Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) and LHIN Aging at Home projects. Finding ways to connect with collaborative organizations with similar interests may be of assistance in promoting CHAP to the community and identifying volunteers to be volunteer peer health educators.

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5.4 Develop a Communications Plan

The development of a comprehensive communications plan is an integral component of CHAP’s success at the community level. Your communications plan will guide how and when CHAP resources speak to the community and the manner in which CHAP information is disseminated.

A sample communications plan is provided in Appendix 2.1. It can be used as a guide to develop a plan that is tailored to your community’s needs. Appendices 2.3, 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6 also provide samples of press releases and print materials.

Your CHAP communications plan should outline the following:

• CHAP Program Goals
  • A bulleted list of overall goals of CHAP.
• CHAP Communications Goals
  • A bulleted list of goals for CHAP’s success within your particular community.
• Targeted Audiences
  • A list of key audiences to whom any information dissemination strategies will be targeted.
• Key Messages
  • General: A list of 3-5 bullets outlining key messages to consistently relay to the public.
  • Specific: A list of more detailed messages that could be highlighted when the opportunity arises.
• Channels for Communications
  • A list of contact information for media outlets. For example, print, radio, television, & internet.
  • A list of networking opportunities. For example, community gatherings, churches, senior centres, that can be used to help raise awareness of CHAP within your community.
• Useful Resources
  • Print Material: Posters, brochures
  • Media: Press releases, public service announcements
  • Potential speaking engagements
• Timeline
  • A schedule of the overall communications plan and its deliverables.

A sound communications plan will ensure a consistent approach when speaking to the community through a variety of mediums. Once your plan is developed, use it as a guide for when, how and where you communicate with the public. Communicating with the public and key partners on a regular basis will help to keep the momentum of CHAP strong.

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