Before you begin your rural outreach and networking, it can help to think about your readiness to do this work, including how comfortable you are with rural culture and organization’s ability to support your efforts. In this section there are several tools for increase your self-awareness.
Are you ready?
Getting to know your service area really well takes time and resources. It can be helpful to devote some staff to just understanding these rural areas, the commonplaces individuals gather, and learn what programs currently exist.
How comfortable are you with reaching out to strangers? To calling on people you have worked with before? Do you enjoy traveling into different communities and meeting with different types of people?
What strengths do you bring?
Activity: Assessing your skills and strengths worksheet
Rural cultural humility
People who are effective in doing rural outreach and networking tend to be people who are very good at wearing multiple hats. Because there are fewer people, you will often find that individuals who are well-networked in rural places are involved in community in many different ways. For instance, the woman who runs the food pantry might also be a member of the Lions Club, serve as a volunteer for Meals on Wheels, and also is her church’s treasurer.
CIL staff have described that although they might specialize in housing in an urban setting, in rural places they have to just listen for the need (maybe it is transportation) and put on a different hat. We sometimes call this being a rural generalist.
In addition to approach service work in a different way, people in rural places tend to be less trusting of outsiders and people. There are many reasons for this, but here are a couple for you to consider when experiencing resistance or resentment when trying to work with rural folks.
- Historically, rural places have not been well compensated for their contributions to the construction of and maintenance of urbanization. For instance, rural communities are almost always the first to have hospital funding cut in favor of centralizing health services in urban centers, despite the raw materials extracted from their communities to build the urban health infrastructure.
- In addition to generally exploitive historical policies that favored urban people and places, rural Black and Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) have experienced additional oppression being forced to live in rural places not of their choosing and long being denied basic civil rights and access to community-building resources
Before reaching out, it is valuable to understand what the local norms and customs are in your rural service area. Navigating local language and cultural norms can be tricky! It is important to have cultural humility when approaching partners whose backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences are different from yours. Here are some questions to think about to help you be more prepared to respectfully connect with others. Are there deeply rooted traditions or cultural norms around community living experiences, such as what food is appropriate or certain behaviors like smoking?
- What kinds of geographic or environmental barriers to participation exist? Are their travel difficulties or weather conditions to be aware of?
- How difficult has it been to recruit local professionals related to community living?
- Who are the “hard-to-reach” local populations? For example, are there migrant farmworkers in the community? What is the harvest schedule?
- How do community members view certain professions such as doctors or government officials?
Regardless of how much you learn about a community ahead of time, it is still important to enter those first engagements with a high level of curiosity and openness.
Research ahead of time to know audience and gain cultural competency of your region’s culture, so that your mannerisms and approach match what is best for the community you are trying to serve.
Consider how important language is: Understanding power dynamics and the history of disability culture can help you to speak respectfully and in an empowering way.
Meeting people where they are – what does this really mean?
Physical needs: Remember to think about accessible spaces, above and beyond structural. For example, some people will need a meeting space with less sensory stimuli or space to be able to move around during the meeting. This could mean meeting individuals at the laundromat, at bars, at church events, or other non-traditional meeting places. Finding a meeting space can be a compromise, and it might be helpful to meet consumers where they are comfortable.
Psychiatric, mental, and emotional needs: It is important to understand the stigma that can be associated with having a disability. It is also crucial to know that in the past, consumers might have trusted a center to help them, and then might have had their services fall through the cracks, breaking that trust. This could be a reason consumers do not reach out for help.
What does it mean to come in without an agenda? The focus of coming in without an agenda is taking a back seat to focus on listening. This might mean finding an event that consumers are attending and showing up without brochures, pamphlets, or a sales pitch for your center. Instead, it is important to listen to the concerns that are being voiced. It might be a good idea to carry a few business cards in case a conversation strikes organically, and an individual is interested in connecting with you.
How do you do this when you do come with an agenda? In this case, it might be helpful to attend an event with a consumer that trusts you and the work you have done. You won’t be making the introductions, but can allow the consumer to connect you with those they think could benefit from your services.
Who is the right person to attend these events? It might be someone who has experience with the population you are meeting. Having someone involved from the same culture, same geographic location, or same experience in dealing with the disability as those you are attempting to meet can be a great way to build trust and connection. Other times, it could be someone who has taken the time to grow in their cultural humility.
Translate pamphlets, brochures, and other materials into languages spoken in your community.
Go beyond translating with Google. Make sure that the language being translated is one that the community will be able to understand and connect with.
Being disability aware:
Picking your environment: Ensure that the locations of your activities, whether indoor, outdoor, or on the internet, are accessible for individuals with varying disabilities (e.g., physical, mental, intellectual, etc.). Here is a checklist tool that can be used to help assess the accessibility:
http://rtc.ruralinstitute.umt.edu/resources/community-assessment-for-accesible-rural-events/
Ensure that any web communications are accessible to all with closed captioning and other aids. It is easy to check for the accessibility an online document. Microsoft Word has a “Check Accessibility” feature in the “Review” tab, which can tell you if certain formatting features are not accessible.
Know Your Organization
Successful outreach starts with clearly identifying the “who, what, and why” for your project. While the specific goals should be defined collaboratively, the general overall mission is to improve access to independent living resources for your rural consumers. Who needs to be involved? What are you asking them to get involved in? Weekly or monthly meetings? Bringing a specific expertise to the table? Finally, do you have a good “elevator speech” for why they should want to invest in the effort?
If you have never had to develop an elevator pitch before, this might feel overwhelming. Here are some quick tips for creating and practicing your elevator speech. Elevator speeches are
- Specific
- Your name, organization, position
- 2-3 brief key points or goals you want to communicate
- Short
- 30-60 seconds long, the length of an elevator ride (thus the name)
- Practiced
- Do a few run throughs through with coworkers or practice in private
- A call to action
- What are you asking for? Information? Help? Resources?
- Consider ending with an open-ended question to stimulate a conversation.
Here are a few steps you can take to feel better prepared:
- Spend just two or three minutes brainstorming about what you think your goals are – writing them down, typing them up, or making an audio recording.
- Once you have a good list, review them and think about what the top most important goals are and how you might talk about them. For instance, if your goal is to better reach your rural consumers, what are some smaller goals you could focus on? Meeting other service providers with the same goal? Meeting with community-based organizations that are already connected with rural consumers? Learning more about what others are doing? Partnering with existing organizations in the community to hold rural office hours?
- Combine your top two or three goals with a brief introduction and an open-ended question
- Practice on your friends and coworkers!
Activity: An RCLD Elevator Speech Template
Another approach is to consider already identified gaps in use of your services or programs? For instance, do the youth in your rural service area attend Zoom game nights, but very few older adults with disabilities engage in your services?
Knowing your strengths and weaknesses as an organization can help you assess if your organization is ready to support rural outreach efforts.
Funding may be needed for space, supplies, staff salaries, and outreach and engagement and activities.
How do you learn about what your organization does? Do you have a calendar of events?
Set up informal “informational interviews” with other staff.
Staff are an important resource to rural services integration programs. Staff requirements, roles, and responsibilities need to be clearly defined at the outset of a program. Staff may require specific trainings or certifications to participate in a services integration program.
Activity: Questions to ask about your CILs readiness to support your rural outreach and networking efforts
- Do your Executive Director and other supervisors value increasing the reach of your services into rural areas?
- Does your center have resources to support you traveling to meet with people in person, when appropriate?
- Finally, do you have the right people for who you are trying to reach? In addition to disability diversity, how diverse is your staff in terms of Black and Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC), LGBTQ+, gender, or other marginalized groups within your rural service area? Do you have people with diverse experiences such as experiencing homelessness, violence, or other trauma who feel comfortable connecting with others in similar situations?