Poor AmeriCorps members - I put them through the longest version of "What I think I know about public policy in literacy" based on my masters research.  Tried to go through the thought process that brought me to my conclusions, but I could tell I was losing them - so I tried to go quickly through lit review highlights, and had them fill out the readiness survey like the providers did in the research project (you know, participatory and all!)  note to self:  don't do Friday afternoon presentations.  Went over to the findings and it got better.  Tried to get someone interested in doing some research for extra hours on my cross-pollination idea - what other similar social service issues have done with message, advocates and successes, but no luck.

MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers) would be a good success story to research on these 3 components.  I think the mental health field might be similar to ours in that it has a high stigma attached to it; not many consumers are coming forth as advocates, and the public wants to pretend it doesn't exist or will just go away.  Petrice also suggested looking at a social issue that has moved from stigma to success like the AIDS movement.  Lucky for us ProLiteracy's new CEO came over from that issue and then opened up an office in Washington DC.  I hope to get some time to talk to him one on one - he was not here very long for the COABE conference last fall.

Okay, so move to today - did a shortened version of the presentation at the provider meeting as they were the subjects of the research project conducted for the masters.  They weren't interested in anything but the findings either, but I made them sit through all of it anyway. :D  Then I moved onto what I'm doing to resolve my questions, and that elicited some good feedback. 

That new work will be in the next post.