In South Dakota we are a large state in land, but small in the numbers
of people in our state.
So we have a lot of area to cover with not a very big workforce.
We have approximately 35 prevention professionals
that serve our entire state. So they might cover a
one-, two-, three-, five-county area.
Which could be
a hundred plus miles. And they're trying to serve the people in that area--
and then it may not be very many people. So, along with the size of our state and
not a huge amount of people, we also have weather issues in South Dakota. We
get all four seasons, but in particular winter. Probably the months of November
through about March it can be very difficult to travel in South Dakota.
You can certainly plan it,
but it may not happen. A blizzard comes at the drop of a hat
and there won't be driving across the state. In the past, we'd
be able to come together maybe four times a year
and we had the funding to be able to do that.
Well, in these economic times, we don't have
the funding to allow people to travel
across the state and be overnight in a hotel. You know, the per diem, all of those
costs, as well as being out of the office for two full days--which, depending on
what perspective you look at it from, you may think that's not productive time.
So, by working with SAMHSA's CAPT, we've been able to learn about some
additional technology
pieces that are available to us, such as Ready Talk or webinar. So, in order
to do a webinar, we're discovering we can all stay right in our location, in your
cube, your office (if you're so lucky),
your home--
home office, a lot of times. And it doesn't matter if we have a blizzard
outside or not. We can still hold a meeting or our training.
And so it's just afforded us the ability
to hold those trainings no matter what month we are in.
And too, a lot less planning
and preparation in order to make that happen. Because now you don't have to
find a venue.
You don't need to give people a month and half notice so they can get it
on their schedule
and be out of the office two days. Instead,
it's a two-hour time block
and we can schedule that in the next couple weeks and people can likely be
there and be present.
With webinars there's a learning curve to get used to that and know
how to use it and help people feel comfortable with it. Certainly, the
first webinar that we did
people were a little bit shy about it because you don't have that
face-to-face dialogue that you get in a training.
If you're someone like me, who learns that way--I like to have that
face-to-face contact--
I thought, "How is this going to work? Are people going to like it?"
But then, through the training that SAMHSA's CAPT provided us, we started
to understand there's other ways we can have dialogue. It isn't just one-sided,
someone presenting to us. We can chat while we're online. It doesn't
replace face-to-face training and face-to-face contact. It
doesn't completely replace that.
It provides us an option.
We have certain prevention providers in our state
that, literally, they cannot travel.
They have no travel budget. And so they are at a point where they're saying, "You
can have the best training in the world and I'm not gonna be able to be there. So
now there's nothing for me."
So by having the webinars, at least some of the time, they feel like they can
connect again and connect with the group.
Get a chance for some of that dialogue and that additional learning.