Take One Step Outreach Grantees
Thanks to the generous support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Public Television Viewers and PBS, 11 stations have been awarded grants for their outreach efforts. We were very pleased to see that the programs stations have designed are as inspiring as they are diverse. They are also targeted to very specific populations and have well-defined goals that will offer measurable results.
Grantee Summaries
Arkansas Educational Television Network (AETN)
AETN and its partners will host a one day summit for state health, school and human resource professionals. Following the broadcast of DEPRESSION, the station will air a one-hour broadcast on depression in Arkansas presented with their partner, NAMI. “Healing Minds, Changing Attitudes”, will feature a panel discussion and live call-in, with a phone bank of mental health professionals. AETN will offer resources through print, broadcast and web for individuals suffering from depression, as well as for caregivers.
WUFT, Gainesville, FL
WUFT will host a leadership summit on the topic of treatment and recovery from depression. Summit participants will include research and community and mental health professionals who will discuss current services and assess what needs are still not met, allowing participants to describe their vision of how the Gainesville/North Central Florida community can better serve adults with depression.
Kentucky Education Television (KET)
KET will engage business leaders in an examination of depression in the workplace. In partnership with the Kentucky Mental Health Coalition and NAMI-KY, KET will work with the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce (which manages the new statewide worksite wellness initiative) and Kentucky's 14 Regional Community Mental Health Centers in community leadership summits focused on addressing the impact of depression on Kentucky businesses. The summits will also link business leaders with their local mental health services and other resources to support employees who are experiencing depression. KET will provide mini-grants to participating regional and local Chambers of Commerce to host their summits.
WKAR, East Lansing, MI
WKAR will host a community summit that will offer breakout groups to focus on of the causes and impacts of depression and specific groups affected by the condition such as youth, gender and bias, and depression and the workplace. The project aims to provide professionals with a deeper understanding of depression, provide tools for early detection, profile lesser discussed issues of gender and race related to treatment, and ways to successfully live with the illness. The station aims to create a ripple effect, equipping summit attendees with information to take back into the workplace, which it hopes will lead to mini-summits hosted throughout the community.
CMU Public Television, Mt. Pleasant, MI
WCMU, along with its partners, will create a Central Michigan Coalition on Depression that will strengthen community awareness of depression, develop strategies to improve support and services, particularly among elderly and their caregivers, and provide information and access to support. At the center of WCMU's project is a community summit that will be held on the Saginaw Chippewa reservation. The summit is scheduled during a Native American health expo focusing on the elderly and their caregivers.
Nebraska Educational Telecommunications Television (NET1)
NET1 and its lead partner, the University of Nebraska Public Policy Center, will convene a live statewide summit via videoconference focused on creating pathways to the successful treatment of depression in communities across Nebraska. The theme of the summit, "Growing Success", will be based on the Appreciative Inquiry process. The objective of the summit is for community members to dialogue with each other, experts, and policy makers, about what communities can do to plan for and create opportunities for successful treatment of depression.
WTVI, Charlotte, NC
WTVI will focus on the issue of mental illness in teens. The project will feature a day-long leadership summit followed by school forums and assemblies with mental health experts available for Q&A, and a community-wide educational event. WTVI will expand and enhance its partnerships and relationships with a wide variety of mental health and related agencies, including the Teen Health Connection.
WHYY, Philadelphia, PA
WHYY and its community partners will hold a summit of stakeholders to assess individual, family and professional needs and develop collaborative strategies to help people with depression in Philadelphia, whose population includes many elderly and minorities. A community forum captured for digital broadcast and call-in radio program coordinated with the television broadcast will help educate the public about depression and help overcome stigma in seeking help. Additional plans call for a radio program focus on depression through WHYY’s Voices in the Family with Dr. Dan Gottlieb.
Nashville Public Television
Nashville Public Television in cooperation with area partners will host a community summit called “Bridging the GAP”, which will create dialogue, expand partnerships, educate viewers, and extend the impact of the broadcast of DEPRESSION. NPT will work closely with NAMI to focus efforts on a target community such as the military, in order to better integrate mental health and private care.
KLRU-TV, Austin, TX
KLRU will target depression in older adults with focus groups and dialogue among clergy, primary care physicians and community clinic physicians, looking at what the community can and should do to address the needs of older adults. KLRU will host a summit and invite elected officials, social service directors, and advocacy groups, in addition to the clergy and health professionals. The discussion is designed to begin building a common vision on how to integrate policy, services, and resources serving older adults with depression.
Wisconsin Public Television
Wisconsin Public Television will convene a statewide Campus Summit Videoconference to help clarify and streamline statewide public and private colleges' referral policies for students experiencing depression. Mental health professionals from the University Health Services' counseling divisions will join Wisconsin Public Television to discuss strategies that will provide equal access to mental health treatment information at all University System campuses as well as private colleges in Wisconsin. The videoconference summit will be uplinked from the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison and made available for delayed web cast. A result of the project will be a downloadable student mental health resource guide to be housed at wpt.org.
