VIOLA HOLMES: Hello, I'm Viola Holmes. And on behalf of the Virginia Center for Diabetes Prevention and Education, welcome to this webinar. This is one in the series of three entitled Making Priority Populations a Priority In Your National Diabetes Prevention Program. In this session, we focus on engaging the African-American community in the national DPP. The CDC has identified priority populations who are at high risk for developing type 2 diabetes, yet they're underrepresented in our lifestyle change programs. These populations include Medicare beneficiaries, men, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, Alaskan natives, Pacific islanders, and non-institutionalized people with visual impairments or physical disabilities. So for this webinar series, we wanted to hear from some of our very own Virginia NDPP lifestyle coaches who have successful programs reaching priority populations. The purpose of the series is to exchange experiences and practical tips for increasing priority populations access to and engagement in our NDPPs. And it's also to explore strategies and activities for outreach, recruitment, and retention of priority populations in our programs. Today, I'm very happy to welcome our presenter, Michelle McRae. Michelle is a lifestyle coach for the Balm in Gilead. The Balm in Gilead is a non-profit faith-based organization that focuses on disease prevention and health promotion in the African-American community. Michelle is on her fifth cohort in the Hampton Roads area. So we're really excited for Michelle to share with us some of her tips for success. So welcome and thank you, Michelle. With that, I-- [INTERPOSING VOICES] VIOLA HOLMES: to you. MICHELLE MCRAE: Thank you. Thank you so much. And how are you today? So I'm going to talk about engaging the African-American community and the national DPP. And I just wanted to be able to just give some information-- some good tips on how you can provide outreach to your communities, and kind of make it fun. And at the same time, help them live a healthy life and lose weight and be successful in the program. So I want to talk about the experiences and practical advice for increasing poverty populations. I have about five bullets here that I'd like to share. So leaders in the community, which is your churches, your doctor's office, your local recreation, you want to engage them. You want to go out and you want to meet with them. You want to make them a part of your program. That is so essential. Because if you have the pastors of churches who will actually announce your program to the congregation, a lot of times the congregation goes with what the pastor says. And that'll be a lot of people that you'll be able to reach right in your churches. Right in your local community. The doctor's office. If you have doctors that are treating patients who have high A1C levels and they are recommending that clients go on a good, healthy diet. Talk to your doctors. Let them know that you're a lifestyle coach, and give them your cards. Give them your flyers. And let them know that you want to invite them, actually, to your sessions so they could present to your class about diabetes. And pretty much engage them and give them an awareness about the disease. Local recreations. That is [INAUDIBLE] essential. You want to go to local communities, local recreations like the YMCA. Different local recreations in your community. And ask them can you leave a flyer. Or maybe ask can you put the whole class or a session there at the YMCA or any of the recreation centers. My next one is get support from your community. Friends and family. Friends and family, once they know that you're doing something like this, they will applaud you and they will support you in any way that they can. You can give them this information, and you tell them, look, I don't expect you to explain anything. Just take my flyer. Put it on your social media. Give it out when you're walking or put it in-- put the flyers in mailboxes, if you will. So your friends and your families can share with their friends, they can share it with people on their job. So they can actually be your spokesman or you. The next one, you want to continually market all the time. Continually market. Because even if your class is full, you still have flyers left over. You can always continue to email letting people know that this class is still going on. It's still going on. It's not too late. And if it is a full class, at least you have the information and they know that you're someone that's actually doing the class. And then, if they have friends or they have co-workers and decide confiding into them and they're telling them about their health, they can actually refer them to you. Because they'll say, I've got a friend. I've got an aunt. I've got a brother, I've got a sister that's actually teaching a diabetic class. So here's her number, here's her card, here's her flyer. They'll speak to them. So you want to always continue to pass out flyers. And you want to make it personal. Make it a family affair. When people come on Zoom or wherever you're holding your class, you want to make it personal. When I say personal, you want to tell them your story. Give them your testimony. You don't want to make it as though you haven't arrived, you have no problems, you have no flaws, you're not eating healthy. Because we all have been-- we all had that problem where sugar, we can't stop eating sugar. We can't stop eating cake. So when I say make it personal, give your testimony so they know, hey, you're in this with them. They're not doing it alone. And next, be creative. Again, these are experiences and practical advice. Be creative. Never let your class know what to expect the following week. Always invite someone. Always be creative in your mind until that following week. So when they come to meet you and see you, they don't know what to expect. What's next? We know that the curriculum is there, but get into the curriculum and build on top of CDC's curriculum so you can make it engaging for everyone so they can take it home and they can apply it to their life. Because that's what's making it personal, and that's what's making it unpredictable. So those are the experiences and the practical advices for increasing priority population. The next one is strategies and activities for outreach, recruitment and retention. Strategies and activities for outreach. So the first one, invite guests that will speak from personal experiences. Again, you want to make it personal. You want to give it that ambience that we're just sitting at home around the table. And someone is coming to speak to us for no cost. We then pay them a dime. And they are either there to bring an awareness about maybe their journey. Maybe they had type 1 or maybe they had type 2. And they're going to speak on how it affected their lives. Real short story. I had a friend when I started my strategies and my activities for outreach. I had a very good friend out of Baltimore. I asked her, I said, listen, can you be a guess for me and just speak on behalf of what you've gone through living as a type 1 diabetic? And you should have seen. There was 16 people who showed up. And they were just so attentive of hearing her story because she's actually wearing a pump. And she went through that whole story. So I'm going to go into that, but I just want to say invite guests. Don't be the only speaker because you want to let people know that this is hitting a lot of people in the community. You're not the only one that's going through this. Secondly, strategies and activities. Again, for outreach. Promote, promote, promote. Social media is the way. So what I did was I've got with friends and families who are constantly on their phone, constantly on their Facebook, constantly on Instagram and Twitter. I'm not on there. But you better believe, we got friends that are on there. So give them the flyer and ask them, listen, could you post this to your Facebook page? Could you post this? You'll be surprised. Yesterday was my second class on Zoom. And I had a doctor that was supposed to show up. But then, I also had more people because, again, I'm reminding people the day of. I look forward to seeing you tonight, OK? Tonight is pre-diabetic prevention. I hope to see you there. Always keep it in the forefront of their mind because we'll all overwhelmed with what's going on in our lives. And this is just something added to something that we want to keep going. We want to keep healthy. And we need somebody to promote it. We need somebody to encourage us. And that's what we do as lifestyle coaches. We're saying, hey, we're all in this together, but let's not forget about our health. Thirdly, contact some places where your target demographic frequents and invite them. So whatever your demographic areas, wherever you're targeting, whatever population you're targeting, go there. Go there because you'll see them there, OK? And invite, invite, invite. You can't expect to go maybe to-- I want to say real quick, to a Hispanics church, OK? And expect to meet African-Americans there. Because the Hispanics are worshipping in their language. So if you're targeting Hispanics or Asians, any people of beautiful color, go where they frequently go and invite them. Because they need this as well. So pass out your flyers. Let them know that you can have guests that speak in their language. Meet them where they are, OK? So my next one is, contact businesses. Oh my goodness, this is so important. If you want to-- if you want some important activities and you want people to show up, go to your local businesses, go to the gyms, go to the community agencies. And ask them to be a guests. Ask them to be a guest and give them that 10 or 15 minute shine so they can promote their business at the same time. They are learning about your program. And then when they get back to work they're saying, hey, you need to come back-- you need to come to this program because I was a guest at this particular lifestyles coach-- coaches' meeting. She was teaching on diabetes. And she allowed me to promote my State Farm program. She allowed me to promote my agency. Give the businesses some time to promote their business on your platform. And then, let them do it at the end, not at the beginning. Because if they hear everything that you're doing at the beginning, and then at the end they have obtained what your program was about as far as healthy eating and reaching out to people who are diabetics, they're going to say, I want to introduce you to someone that's from Allstate or State Farm. They're going to talk to us a little bit about their business. They already know what you're doing because they've heard everything until the end. Now, you've given them that 15 minute shine to promote their business. And now they're going back to their employment to talk about what you're doing. So those are the keys that I have for strategies and activities for outreach. Last, retention. You got everybody that you need in your class and things are moving good. You've identified. You've got them enrolled in a program. You've identified the weight. You've identified that they may have gone to the doctors and the doctor's referred them to you. Now, you want to keep them. That's what retention is all about. I remember when I first did my first class I had over 30 people. And you better believe, as coaches, we're just like teachers. We have to keep their interest. We have to keep our participants engage. So you want to be creative. One thing I learned from one of my class is music. Music is so soothing. So once we're done with the curriculum, whether that's 30 minutes or whatever, be creative with some games. Have some incentives. Meaning if you get 20 people in a class or if you've got 15. Oh no, let's say 16. Let's have a even number, 16. You want to put them in teams. Eight on one side or eight on the other. And what you're doing is, OK, these are the teams. And until we meet next Tuesday, because we're meeting every Tuesday, let's be held accountable to each other. So by the time next Tuesday come, on average, let's see who's lost the most weight. And whoever wins gets maybe a 50 dollar card or a gift card to Kroger's or to the holistic store. Incentives. Let's play a game where whoever drunk the most water in an average. You want to make sure everybody's drinking at least to 100 ounces of water a day. Let that team be held accountable. Let them be there each other's keeper. Let them be held accountable to each other where they're checking on each other. Did you drink your water? I got mine. So then, when we meet again next Tuesday, let's see who drank the most water. Who was at the captain team? Who won? So games. Guest speakers. Now, we're talking about-- we're in the curriculum and we're learning how to eat. Go to some of your culinary schools and ask will some somebody come and speak about teaching how to cook with spices and herbs. Bring guest speakers in. You don't want to be the only voice in this program. There were so many people out here that believes in this program that want to help us. And know that in every family there's someone that wants to lose weight. So go out and be creative and get some guest speakers to confirm what you're saying through the CDC program, which is so excellent. Group outings to restaurants. There's a session in our curriculum where we want to practice going out eating together. So create a night where, hey, let's all meet at Long John Silver's or let's meet at Olive Garden. And let's practice portions, OK? So hopefully, by the time we get out of this pandemic and we're able to go out and socialize in a safe manner. Let's plan to meet out at an outing. Let's be outdoors. The sun is shining. But what you're doing is now you're implementing the portion where they can take home some-- some of that food home and eat another serving of it. Because they are learning that restaurant plate, that entree, is more than one serving. It's actually two for their money. So you want to start getting them in practice. Accountability during the week. I covered that two minutes ago with doing the games and the music and the incentives. This is when you've given them a task. You've given them an assignment. Team A verse team B. Eight here, eight there. Accountability during the week. By the time we meet each other next Tuesday, who has drunk the most water? Who has done 30 minutes a day in exercising? Be creative and make it fun because it becomes personable, OK? And last but not least, personal encouragement. Contact your participants and share challenges and strengths, OK? They will find that, hey, they're going to get to know their body. I'm not as strong as I thought I was. I failed this week. Have testimonial times. When you meet each week, let's hear the testimonies, let's hear the strengths. Let's applaud each other. Let's praise one another. Let's uphold one another. Let's check in on one another. As a lifestyle coach, this is some of the retention that you want to do. You want to check during a week day to make sure they're doing fine. And ask any-- answer any personal questions they may have that they may now want to share in front of everybody. So I really hope this helped you a lot. And these are my tips on retaining your students. Thank you. And if you have any questions, feel free to call me or text me at michelle@givinglightinc.com. Thank you. VIOLA HOLMES: Michelle, thank you so much. That was so rich. I think as I was listening to you, the one word that I get from what you said is really relationships. And you identify just building that network of friends and family and businesses and community members. And how you share-- you want the referrals from the doctor's office. You want the parishioners, the pastors, members. But you also want them to be a part of the program to come-- [INTERPOSING VOICES] VIOLA HOLMES: I think that's so key. And your passion for what you're doing. [INTERPOSING VOICES] VIOLA HOLMES: many great insights. So thank you so much. So rich. MICHELLE MCRAE: Thank you. Thank you for having me. VIOLA HOLMES: And also, for if you have not seen the other videos in this series, I want you all to know that on our website we have the other two webinars posted. And the first one was NDPP Strategies For Reaching The Hispanic Community. And we also have one on reaching Medicare beneficiaries. So please go to our website for not only this webinar, but also the other two webinars in this series for priority populations. And also want to just remind everyone of the technical assistance that our center offers. You should receive a bi-monthly newsletter from us. And also we have a Facebook page. So if you've not liked it, please look for Virginia Center for Diabetes Prevention and Education Facebook page. We're available on Mondays from 12 to 1 to answer any questions, to talk to you about NDPP. And again, our website with lots of resources and annual meetings So thank you all for viewing. And again, thank you, Michelle. MICHELLE MCRAE: Thank you. Thank you for having me.