Getting the word out

A little over two years ago, APA began unveiling its public education campaign, "Talk to Someone Who Can Help." The campaign materials made available for widespread use by psychologists and psychological associations resulted from nearly two years of research and development. Much has happened since that time that bears highlighting.

First, however, it is important to address a significant misperception about the campaign. Contrary to what some believe, the campaign is not, and never was intended to be, a national advertising campaign. While there are television, radio and print ads available as part of the campaign, the $1 million annual budget for all campaign-related activities simply cannot support our relying on advertising as the vehicle for communicating psychology's message. National ad campaigns are very expensive. Consider, for example, that the Dairy Management's "Got Milk" campaign, which relies almost exclusively on advertising, costs $200 million per year!

A nationwide infrastructure

Because organized psychology is not affluent, we need to be smart and strategic in using our limited resources. Therefore, the public education campaign has been developed as a carefully orchestrated set of activities designed to systematically disseminate a strategically developed and focused flight of messages about psychology and psychological services to selected target audiences. To accomplish this objective, our first order of business has been to develop a nationwide infrastructure capable of conveying the focused campaign messages.

To this end, 49 state and regional associations and practice divisions currently have a structure in place, including a designated public education campaign coordinator, and are implementing campaign activities. In fact, our recent State Leadership Conference included specific training for these campaign coordinators. A significant goal of this training is to help coordinators develop a grassroots network of psychologists for seamless and consistent message dissemination to various relevant publics.

Campaign activities have included community outreach, media outreach and advertising. Collaboration between the APA campaign and large-scale national awareness events has involved Mental Health Awareness Month, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and a series of screening days for various mental health disorders including anxiety and depression. Joint ventures for information exchange with 28 organizations have included the Alzheimer's Association, Jewish Family and Children's Services, Fitness Link and Nordstrom Department Store.

Because "getting the word out" is central to our campaign, 11 state and regional associations have used advertising to complement community and media outreach activities. Based on the number of ads placed and the density of the media markets, this advertising has reached an estimated 36,593,246 cumulative households. That is not to say that all these households actually heard or attended to one of our ads, but rather that this many households have been exposed to our messages through advertising. Many more have been exposed to campaign messages through media outreach. Over the past two years, newspaper and magazine articles related to campaign themes or the campaign itself, including our toll-free Help Line (800-964-2000) and web site address (helping.apa.org), have found their way into an estimated 232,743,252 cumulative households.

Help Line usage recently surpassed 11,000 consumers calling either for information or referral to a psychologist. Callers seeking a referral are connected directly to an available referral source in their geographic area. Cumulative "hits" to the campaign's web site, the Help Center, recently exceeded the 1.3 million mark. A site redesign has made our campaign web presence more "user-friendly" and informative, while giving us the capability to conduct polling on health-care issues. A recent reference to our newly redesigned site by USA Today's "Hot Sites" produced a one-day "hit" rate of 5,310, in contrast to the 1998 daily average of 1,200 hits.

The campaign infrastructure and the visibility achieved to date have paved the way for our current joint venture with MTV (Music Television) on warning signs of teen violence. The project--which includes a television show as part of the MTV "True Life" series, a warning signs guide, a toll-free number, and a coordinated series of forums and presentations by psychologists in schools and other sites throughout the country--provides the type of large-scale national visibility for psychology's message that was envisioned when APA first decided to undertake the campaign.

A long-term commitment

Yet, successful public education requires consistency and persistence not achieved by any single event or activity. It requires long-term commitment by organized psychology and grassroots involvement by all of us. Every psychologist must, in effect, become a spokesperson for psychology armed with a consistent and focused set of messages. To get involved, call (800) 964-2000 and request a campaign kit with materials designed to help every psychologist serve as a spokesperson for our profession and our services.



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