2. Program Tailoring

Your design team should have extensive knowledge about current laws regarding smoking, community demographics, culture, knowledge, attitudes and beliefs before designing your program. Oftentimes this information is not available in literature and mustbeobtained via direct surveying. If the survey is well designed, you should be able to survey a small section of the population and still extrapolate for the entire community. If you have enough funds, consider hiring a professional survey company, asthey will guarantee unbiased results. Design your program with the survey results in mind, attempting to diminish hurdles that your participants may encounter, like language barriers, literacy barriers, or cultural barriers. Try to avoid any conflicts thatmay occur as a result of your intervention’s time and place. Transportation might be an issue in a community that does not have regular access to it; likewise, if the community is strongly religious, you may want to avoid regular times of worship, like Saturday night or Sunday morning. Try to include a variety of activities to encompass the diversity of the community. Similarly, be prepared to offer a variety of learning and educational materials that run the gamut from the college educated to thebarely literate. Incorporate activities that coincide with community values, preferences, and norms. For example, if a community gathers every month for a town meeting, hold an information session after the meeting ends. An easy way of obtaining community information about values and social preferences is to hire local individuals to help run your program. They should be able to help you procure meeting space, funds, advertising opportunities, etc. Local leaders know about community resources better than anyone and would be an extremely important asset for you program. In addition, local leaders know of other important members of the community that could aid you in accomplishing your goals.

Skill Areas:
A Ability to work with target group members in using baseline survey findings to design locally relevant programs

B Ability to secure significant participation by local leaders in program activities

C Ability to design or tailor programs that pose few barriers to participation by target group members (including barriers related to culture, language, place, transportation, and timing)

D Ability to reflect prevailing cultural norms, values and preferences in program activities

E Ability to reflect the diversity of the community’s population (and the fact that different population groups have different needs) in the program design

F Ability to identify local resources (e.g., people, knowledge, experience and funds) that can support program goals