Community assessment can help you understand what’s important to your community. You can also identify strengths, assets, needs and challenges to making the journey from SSB consumption as the norm to making water the first choice drink.
The first three steps, Community Assessment, Identifying Stakeholders, and Developing a Statement of Purpose, will probably be iterative activities as you explore
What does your community see as the challenge? What might motivate people in your community to move from drinking SSBs to drinking water?
There is a number of reasons to be interested in this work, including
Health
Tradition
Environmental concerns
Compliance with regulations
Cost
Next, think about who you want to gather information from and how you should do it. Consider using a range of different tools and methods to gather information. Here are some ideas:
Focus groups can be a great way to capture your community members in conversation about these issues.
A survey can be a good way to gather targeted information from a large group of people. You could do an intercept survey, where you are interviewing random people at a store, school, community event, etc. Or you could survey all the participants in a program, the parents at a school or childcare site, etc.
Plan ahead: how will you measure change that comes about from your work? Be sure you use assessment tools that will capture the impact (outcomes) of your intervention. For example you might measure change from before to after the intervention in:
Barriers cited by Summit participants:
Used to sugary taste, water has “no flavor,” sugar addiction, school lunches come with milk, issues with water palatability, water isn’t clean and doesn’t taste good, water is boring; no “flavor” in water, no variety in healthy beverages, “no flavor”
Cost of bottled water vs. SSBs, loss of revenue to stores, use of SNAP to buy SSBs, eating and drinking healthy is more expensive, soda is cheaper, in-home “snack shop” SSBs sales; costs; soda is cheaper (for gatherings), soda is cheaper to buy; sugary purchases with SNAP money; soda is the money-maker, funding/investment in change
Social meaning of providing treats/gifts, sodas are expected at every ceremony and family gathering, SSBs is the normative drink, “Who wants to be the sugar police? Not me!;” “our community has suffered so much already, soda is one of our pleasures;” social-cultural norms (family, ceremony, gatherings, TV and media) all expect SSBs, SSBs are easy to access everywhere; fast food is all over, SSBs is ingrained behavior, soda is easy, soda is more fun than water; SSBs used as a reward, SSBs is easily available; life is too fast-paced to slow down and think about what’s good for you; serving SSBs not water is a traditional status symbol. funding, capacity, lack of interest in issue, pushback from community; SSBs is the norm, accustomed to SSBs at gatherings and unhappy when they are not; for kids: water bottle privileges taken away, water fountain is only access; lack of policy
Contaminated water, limited access to clean water/unsafe well water, poor access to quality water, distrust in water source/non-palatable water; water access and water quality; water is contaminated
People are in denial, “it’s not a big deal” to drink SSBs, soda thought of as “good” energy source, “not ready for change” attitudes, lack of communication/understanding of long-range goals for health and wellness
The Collective Impact model suggests that you can make change most effectively by Identifying the organizations and individuals that need to be on this journey together.
What does your community see as the challenge? What might motivate people in your community to move from drinking SSBs to drinking water?
There is a number of reasons to be interested in this work, including
Oral health care providers are important allies in this work
Youth can be powerful leaders or stakeholders. Here are some examples of youth-led projects
What are ways to identify potential stakeholders? There are a variety of ways you can identify potential stakeholders:
It’s also important to think about how best to tell your story, how to share the goal you’re working towards, and how to bring others into your work. Below are two resources that can help.
Project sharing: Telling about your program
A survey can be a good way to gather targeted information from a large group of people. You could do an intercept survey, where you are interviewing random people at a store, school, community event, etc. Or you could survey all the participants in a program, the parents at a school or childcare site, etc.
Many paths (strategies) move you to the goal - Which might work for your community? How do the strategies respond to community priorities and what your data revealed? What do you see as the feasibility and impact of your potential strategies?
This “pathways” section helps to organize your work into three overarching steps: drinking water safety, access and education/promotion and provides a menu of ideas and examples for strategies and activities your organization can take on.
Three overarching steps to build consumption of water:
How does your community receive its water? What services do water and sewer utilities provide?
Effective access means water that is safe, appealing, and easily accessible.
If improving tap water is not feasible, what are more sustainable and cost-effective means to access water?
Policy Strategies
Some policy involves major policy change. But “little p” policy can be very effective when you use it to change an organization or site-specific practices
“Big P Policy” - legislation
“Little p Policy” - local or institutional policy development
Pairing improved drinking water access with education and promotion can help boost consumption.
Your community assessment may have helped you to understand gaps in knowledge and beliefs. Perhaps messaging addressing water safety concerns and perceptions is needed. Or perhaps general nutrition education is key. The most powerful messages often combine pro-water messaging with anti-SSB messaging and education.
What should you say? How should you communicate it?
What do you want to say to promote water?
Nudges, prompts and messages can influence consumer choices. Marketing strategies make water more visible and/or make SSBs harder to find.
With enough community demand or store-owner buy-in, you may be able to change the marketing of beverages to highlight water, for example by asking for:
All peoples have done record-keeping - it’s in our heritage and history to keep records - notching, songs, traditional stories - are all ways to gather and pass on learnings.
Evaluation methods should be built in to your planning from the beginning, especially since you will want to measure how beverage behaviors were before and after your project or intervention.
Using Indigenous and Western measurements of impact. How can your program impact, and be impacted by, each of these levels of knowledge? Not every program can include every part. But every program can have awareness of these different types of knowledge and of assessment, can use these lenses to reflect on goals, activities, actions, and outcomes.
Individual level speaks to the grounding of work in an individual perspective - owned experience - and an awareness of the individual’s biases, understandings, relationships, and assumptions. In this space, an individual can assert personal agency and choice.
Family level refers to familial connections and perspectives - e.g., school to home and home to school learnings. In an Indigenous framework, this may also include not only biological family only but also clan, kiva, society and extended family connections. This level represents those who are closest to the individual and have a strong influence on the individual’s actions and reflections.
Community level refers to the community in which the individual and family reside and/or are most closely associated. The community dictates norms and values and can have a powerful influence on the individual through the framing of meaning and value conveyed in cultural and traditional understanding.
Creation level includes all that exists before and beyond the community, what binds everything together. Creation refers to all the spiritual and physical interfaces amongst the ecology, the environment, the community, the family and the individual.
Holders and Carriers of Language and Culture, Stories, Ceremonies, Meaning and Relationships (stories, traditional practices, habits and beliefs; what is the core or heart-meaning of the work?). These contribute to a community’s identity. In the modern western models, the individual can determine his or her identity in isolation, choosing to be whoever he/she wants to be. In Indigenous cultures, a person is defined through relationships to family, community, and creation. These relationships define roles and responsibilities, reflect the individual’s place in his or her world, and help to define an understanding of health and balance.
Indigenous Domains of Knowledge: what are the forms of “Indigenous” knowledge - traditional, spiritual and empirical learnings? Indigenous knowledge engages a holistic paradigm that acknowledges the emotional, spiritual, physical and mental well-being of a people. The cultural diversity of Indigenous peoples is addressed through the recognition that Indigenous knowledge is attached to the language, landscapes, and cultures from which it emerges. Traditional knowledge emerges from stories and cultural engagements as passed on through multiple generations. Empirical knowledge is learning through observation and experimentation. Revealed knowledge is that which is gained from prophecy, dreams or spiritual revelations (and can be deeply intuitive, elusive and difficult to explain without traditional or empirical explanations). What is the traditional way - and why or how did it change? What could modeling or observation teach us - or could teach us - in our program’s work? How can we make use of these Indigenous ways of knowing? What would be the impact on our youth?