Educators at University of Nevada, Reno Extension, founded a program called “Heart & Hope” to provide a safe place for domestic violence survivors to learn skills for creating healthy home environments. In this publication, they talk about the critical need for this service and how they work with this sensitive population. The publication is excerpted from the New Technologies for Ag Extension 2022-2023 Yearbook, which documents dozens of projects funded through the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) program. NTAE is a cooperative agreement between USDA NIFA, Oklahoma State University, and the Extension Foundation. The goal of the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) grant is to incubate, accelerate, and expand promising work that will increase the impact of the Cooperative Extension System (CES) in the communities it serves, and provide models that can be adopted or adapted by Extension teams across the nation. This work is supported by New Technologies for Agriculture Extension grant no. 2020-41595-30123 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Grant projects improve human, environmental, and community health.
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Welcome. “Breaking the Cycle” is a publication of the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) program. This publication celebrates the accomplishments of a team at the University of Nevada, Reno Extension, which received funding for this project in 2022-2023. NTAE is a grant program generously supported by the USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and administered through a partnership between Oklahoma State University and the Extension Foundation (EXF). The primary objective of NTAE is to provide financial assistance to competitively selected Extension programs that align with the strategic goal and priority program areas of the USDA and the Extension Com- mittee on Organization and Policy (ECOP). Through this support, NTAE helps teams catalyze, accelerate, and expand their work in their respective fields. Since its inception in 2019, the NTAE program has successfully funded and supported a total of 72 projects and leaders. This includes collaborations with all Regional Rural Development Centers (RRDCs) and ECOP Program Action Teams (PATs). Selected programs receive support for a period of one year. The project leader and their team are provided with invaluable mentoring from a team of catalysts, key infor- mants, and coaches from the EXF. This customized and innovative support model assists teams in exploring new possibilities, enhancing the intended impact of their projects, and sharing their work with a national audience. Additionally, each team receives additional resources and support to create materials and experiences that speed the development of their projects and bring about desired changes. The project showcased in this publication reflects the diversity and breadth of Extension disciplinary work and programming. In this publication, you will gain deeper insights into this exciting project, including the lessons learned, the project’s significance for Extension in a broader context, and what lies ahead for the team.
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Editorial Staff Julie Halverson Dr. Rose Hayden-Smith Heather Martin Design & Production Dr. Rose Hayden-Smith Ellen P. Krugel Heather Martin
1. BE INSPIRED . Use our model to support a vulnera- ble population in your state or region.
PROJECT TEAM
© Extension Foundation Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommer- cial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Published by Extension Foundation. Citations for this publication may be made using the following: Kansas City: Extension Foundation (2022). Breaking the Cycle (1st ed). ISBN: 978-1-955687-28-7. This work, ISBN 978-1-955687-28-7, is supported by New Technologies for Agriculture Extension grant no. 2020- 41595-30123 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Jill Baker-Tingey Extension Educator/Associate Professor, Team Lead Julie Woodbury Administrative Faculty, Heart & Hope Coordinator Joelene Holmes Early Childhood Facilitator Pamela Payne Associate Professor, Extension Specialist
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“The true measure of success is to break the abuse cycle, … rather than being held down by the past. Heart & Hope offers families an opportunity to reach for a brighter future.” — Tyler Ingram Elko County District Attorney
We sat down with Woodbury, who coordinates Heart & Hope, to learn more about the program and the team’s experience with NTAE. How has the NTAE grant made a difference in your program this year? It has been truly transformational. We started out looking for support to write a curriculum for young kids and teens and revise promotional material. And then, every time we met with an Extension Foundation Catalyst or Key Informant, we discovered a new way to promote and deliver our ma- terial, too—ways we had not considered or did not have the resources to do on our own. The EXF team supported us in developing well-designed, eye-catching print/digital promotional material. In addi- tion, they helped us write and fine-tune a case statement to share information about our program with stakeholders and potential funders. With their help, we also updated our program website, making it more engaging by using a chatbot to check for program qualification, online forms to streamline the registration process, and a listserv to grow our program partners. We’re delighted to use these new tools to promote Heart & Hope and reach more families as we gear up to expand statewide and nationally. Working with Karl Bradley, the Extension Foundation’s lead- ership specialist, allowed us to develop our leadership skills further and incorporate the components of highly effective teams. The leadership training expanded our capacity to build stronger connections with internal stakeholders, such as our College Communications Team, which is helping us promote the program in ways we had not accomplished in the past. ➤
the Cycle Extension program helps families build resilience after surviving domestic violence.
The Centers for Disease Control reports that one in four children is exposed to domestic violence in their lifetime. Julie Woodbury has met some of these children and their parents. As educators with University of Nevada, Reno Extension, Woodbury and her colleagues founded a program called “Heart & Hope” to provide a safe place for domestic vio- lence survivors to learn skills for creating healthy home en- vironments. Woodbury remembers one mom, in particular,
who had an aha moment during one of the sessions. “The mother said to me, ‘My daughter’s tantrums are not random to make me mad. They may stem from what she experi- enced. Now I want to respond to her tantrums differently.’” When survivors like this mom and her daughter have resources, skills, and support, they are more likely to break the cycle of violence, Woodbury says. That’s the purpose of this research-based program. Since its inception in 2015, Heart & Hope has served 46 families in Elko, Nevada. The program team has big dreams for the future, including scaling Heart & Hope across the state and the nation. So
they applied for a National Technologies for Ag Exten- sion (NTAE) Acceleration grant to connect with Extension experts nationwide who helped them think differently about what program messages to share, with whom, and how in order to reach a wider audience. The team plans to expand to Las Vegas, Nevada’s largest urban center, to learn how the program may benefit diverse groups, including low-income, minority, and LGBTQ fami- lies and hopes to train 10 staff and serve 30 adults and 50 children in the first year.
Program Evaluation
“Domestic violence is pervasive throughout our society and has devastating conse- quences. The Heart & Hope team brings com- mitment, dedication, professionalism, and the desire to succeed in addressing this issue. I am confident that this intervention program has the potential to become an exemplary regional or national Extension program.”
What are some of the out- comes you’ve seen and how do you report them, given your program’s sensitivity? The mother I mentioned previously in this interview learned to connect the dots among domestic violence expo- sure, children’s development, chil- dren’s behavior, and helpful parenting responses to guide her child. As a result, she had a new understanding of and greater empathy for what her daughter experienced and how it might still impact her, even after they left the domestic violence situation. Three generations of that family par- ticipated in Heart & Hope and were able to establish a strong foundation upon which they could thrive and have hope for a positive future. In the years after their participation, the grandmother even donated to the program. The daughter became a program volunteer and then a pro- gram staff member. Her story made tangible the hopes and dreams of the program. We plan to publish evaluation results in Extension reports and in journal arti- cles—but whenever we collect, aggre- gate, analyze, and report, we do so in ways that maintain anonymity. ➤
dynamics and respond with kindness, understanding, empathy, patience, and encouragement, then participants feel supported to make changes in their lives. Community partners are essential for Extension work. Developing and maintaining community partnerships is a great way to sustain community programs. Our program staff learned the value of partnerships early on. These partners refer families, donate meals, provide meeting space, pay for taxis, and give holiday meals and gifts to families. Program partners show program participants that they are not alone and that the community supports them on their journey toward a positive future. Another lesson we’ve learned through the NTAE grant cycle is the impor- tance of clear communication. Other Extension teams considering adopting Heart & Hope will benefit by incor- porating teambuilding and frequent opportunities to reflect on the team development process.
We’re also shifting our ideas about technology. Until now, our program staff relied on print material to pro- mote and deliver the program. We struggled to enter the technology space for many reasons, including limited staff, knowledge, skills, and time. Incorporating technological components, including chatbots, Google forms, and social media, has sometimes seemed overwhelm- ing. It’s been challenging to decide how and where to start. With what we’re learning this year, these tech- nological improvements are becom- ing part of our program plan. Finally, Rose Hayden-Smith, a Key Informant in publishing for the foun- dation, provided great feedback and encouragement in the devel- opment of our children’s curriculum facilitator guide.
Data collected between 2017 and 2021 indicate that the program is having a positive impact. Adult participants reported increases in their use of these positive parenting practices: • coping skills and stress management • maintaining healthy relationships • having hope for the future • strengthening family relationships • using child development resources • opening up communication with children • using positive guidance strategies • modeling emotional competency • problem solving and conflict management
What can you share with Extension educators who may want to adopt this program? Extension professionals know to begin with needs assess- ment and literature reviews to place the right program in communities at the right time. Extension educators con- sidering Heart & Hope or another violence prevention/ intervention program will best serve their communities by first understanding the local statistics and existing programs that address domestic violence. For a good reason, most domestic violence-related programs and services focus on crisis services. Heart & Hope is different because we focus on education for families after or out of crisis. A critical early step is identifying partners to support the launch of a new program and getting their buy-in. Train- ing staff and volunteers on the complexities of domestic violence work is also vital. It takes a victim multiple attempts before successfully leaving an abuser. They choose to stay for many reasons—children, finances, employment, fear, etc. When program staff understand these perplexing
What surprised you the most this year?
— Dr. Dyremple Marsh NTAE Catalyst
Aaron Weibe, the Key Informant in communications and marketing, asked us where program participants learn about Heart & Hope. After some analysis, we learned that the majority of participants find out about us through community agencies such as the Division of Child and Family Services, the Family Resource Center, and local domestic violence ad- vocates. This information helped us understand the value of partnerships with community agencies as well as the impor- tance of well-designed, eye-catching program flyers. This information also highlighted a gap in our promotional plan: a need for digital promotion. NTAE had the experts, knowledge, skills, and time to support program staff in this area. We were happy to learn that Aaron could assist us in making Heart & Hope easier to find in a Google search and use analytics to determine how many people search for the program. This will be extremely valuable to us as we promote our next session.
“I was so lost before this program. I felt like a failure of a woman and mother. This program helped me regain my sanity and confidence that I can do this.”
—2019 program participant
How can land-grant universities raise the pub- lic’s awareness of Extension as being about so much more than agriculture? Extension is a beautiful network within and across commu- nities to effect change not only in agriculture, but also in children, youth, and family wellness; community develop- ment; horticulture; and nutrition. Community members may be most familiar with 4-H. I often begin my conversations about Extension with 4-H. And then, launch into “did you know Extension has other amazing programs to support children, youth and families, like Heart & Hope?” Extension professionals are equipped with the knowledge and skills to tackle big community issues, like violence, substance abuse, human trafficking. So many families and commu- nities suffer devastating losses due to these issues. This is where Extension expertise is most needed to effect positive change in family systems. ■
In general, it is critical that we let each survivor decide what to share, when to share, and with whom to share their story. Staff hold dear program participants’ privacy, confidenti- ality, and safety. Our team goes to great lengths to ensure participants’ needs in these areas are met and respected before, during, and after participating in the program. How do you protect participants’ privacy? Confidentiality is a ground rule with staff, parents, youth, and teens. We disclose the workshop days, times, and locations only to people who complete the program screening and registration process. We don’t have restau- rants deliver the meals—we pick them up. We carefully maintain paperwork and shred participant files after a set amount of time. We ask detailed questions about taking and using their photo and/or quoting them in publications. We use participants’ initials during staff reflection meetings to maintain their privacy within the office setting. And we let participants know early on that when they see us in public, as happens often in rural communities, they take the lead in acknowledging staff so that we know it is okay to engage with them in public.
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