6. Show how the work you do is connected to the farm and family risk and resilience socio- ecological model and explain why the connections are important for farm and family resilience.
7. Incorporate change and resilience theories in program planning, implementation, and evaluation.
8. Use strategies and tools to assist farm operators, key personnel, community members, and policy makers to integrate eco-systems approaches for planning that help manage risk and build resilience thinking. If a resilience approach is valid, the health of the farm and of the farming population should be strengthened. 9. Work in partnership with others to develop organizational and community policies and collaborations that support and enhance the physical, mental, emotional, and financial health and wellbeing of farming operations, farmers, their families and workers as well as the communities in which they reside. Policies and activities should make it easier for agricultural audiences to connect with risk management actions like accessing health care; affording health insurance, connecting to local markets; finding skilled labor; finding off-farm employment and child or adult care, if needed; and adapt to changes in regulations regarding environmental, production, or food safety. These policies and activities need to address the supports required to build resilience capital for famil ies and farm enterprises. Examples include building strong support networks, creating easy access to care, de- stigmatizing mental health issues, providing low-cost mediation services, finding ways to get products to local and regional markets, finding affordable labor, and identifying creative solutions for training the next generation of farmers so farms can stay viable. Educational programming can address any or all of these supports. Efforts will do much to strengthen the health and vitality of farming operations, farmers, and farm families as well as the communities in which they are located.
P ROG R AM P L ANN I NG
Extension educators understand program planning and are adept at creating programming to increase knowledge and change behavior. Much of our program efforts, however, focus on individuals or the farm enterprise. When taking a more socio-ecological approach, using the strategic planning steps noted above will lead to planning programs that tackle complex topics from multiple levels of the socio-ecological model. Educators can thus create changes at these multiple levels. Program planning can become a bit more complex when using a socio-ecological model but increases the likelihood of impact. Here are a few considerations that educators can use as they move forward in program planning. 1. Understand issues and problems. When planning educational programs, it is important to understand the key issues and problems you want to address. These issues and problems should be grounded in needs assessment, current conditions, and understanding of the literature. There will be different perspectives and solutions when addressing issues from multiple levels of the
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