Another federal public policy, Seeding Rural Resilience, was introduced in 2019 with the intent to curb the rise in suicides among the farming population. One of the three provisions directs the USDA Secretary to work with state, local, and non-governmental stakeholders to determine the best practices for responding to farm and ranch mental stress. In December 2020, Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, which included $28M for state agriculture departments to fund programs aimed at confronting farmers’ mental health crisis and stress. The Act also provided $10M to the USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture for the Farm and
Ranch Stress Assistance Network. More information about the Network is located at https://nifa.usda.gov/program/farm-and-ranch-stress-assistance-network-frsan
TH EO R Y AN D S T R A T E G I E S B E H I N D R E S P ON S E S
Policymakers are responding to stressors affecting the farming population, as are communities and organizations. They share with Extension educators and partners the desire to make good decisions about what policies, interventions, and programming do for the farming population. To make wise decisions, professionals can turn to, and apply, appropriate science to policies, program content, and methods of delivery and assessment. Extension educators and partners want to be strategic and offer education and interventions that are effective. The likelihood of effectively preventing or reducing negative impacts of stressors increases when responses are integrated, multi-disciplinary, theory-driven and evidence-based. An integrated, multi-discipline, social-ecological systems perspective can guide planning, implementation, and evaluation of individual and group programs that focus on the farm and the people of the farm. A pilot test of an integrated program based on resilience theory (McCubbin et al., 1997; Rosino, 2016; Jackman et al., 2015) for farmers in one state found that nearly 100% of participants thought such an approach by Extension was worthy of taxpayers’ dollars.
To date, there is no one integrated theory for handling stressors across the farming population and on farms and farming systems. Thus, interventions need to draw from multiple theories.
Theories provide answers to such questions as to how to make programming effective. Many theories deserve consideration for Extension programming that are in use already that come from a variety of disciplines such as health, agriculture risk management, finance, theories of change, youth and adult development, empowerment, social cognition, planned behavior, communications, and assessment and evaluation. They are all relevant. A quick explanation of each is found in Extension Education Theoretical Framework with Criterion-Referenced Assessment Tools (Braun et al., (2014). Educators who understand the process of change and innovation, and how people differ in their responses to each, will increase the likelihood that their educational programming will have impact.
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