GETTING THE WORD OUT ON HARM REDUCTION

It's not about pamphlets, or the colour of your poster - it's about falling
in love with your audience and "meeting people where they're at," said the
keynote speaker at the sixth annual Alberta Harm Reduction Conference.

Francois Lagarde spoke to health care professionals, social workers,
service providers, volunteers and students about how they can get their
harm reduction message out at the Grande Prairie Inn on Wednesday.

Lagarde, a social marketing and communications consultant from Montreal,
said it's about really understanding your audience's perspective.

"Making sure (you know) what they value and the perceived or real barriers
to what you want to them to do."

The art of communicating, he said, is as simple as when he tried to win a
girl's heart when he was 14.

"The thing I did not do is go to her and say 'Danielle I love you, here's a
pamphlet.'"

Instead he tried to improve the product - himself - by speaking to
Danielle's friends and had to advocate to get her mom to let her go on dates.

He also spoke to her best girlfriends, "for public relations," then
developed a strategy. It didn't work, he said, but he took the time to
develop the best plan first.

REMEMBER YOUR AUDIENCE

Remembering who your audience is, is vital, he said.

"It's not about what I want them to know but what I want them to do, why
would they do it and who has an influence on them," he said.

Whatever you do, the key is to "make it fun, easy and popular," Lagarde said.

But, there will always be 10 to 15 per cent of the target audience you
won't be able to reach, which can be frustrating, he said.

Success also isn't immediate, he said. It took two generations to get the
number of people smoking in Canada from more than 50 to about 23 per cent.

Funding also isn't immediate, but Lagarde said more focus needs to be on
what the goals are, not the problem.

"Before you promise the moon to your funder make sure you are realistic,"
he said. "We have to remember people are not buying a problem, they're
buying a solution.

"If all you're promoting is a problem, people will want to ignore the
problem because you don't have a solution," he said.

Wayne Spychka, manager of the funded services unit for AADAC in Edmonton,
was pleased with presentation.

"One of the challenges that we have is that there are subgroups that
believe that their behaviour is normal," he said.

Lagarde has told him that somehow the "opinion leader" within the group has
to be influenced to make a change which Spychka hopes to learn more about.

"We've got our work cut out for us," said Deborah Miville, community
developer for Living Positive, which supports people living with HIV in
Edmonton.

"It's wonderful to have some of our membership quite excited. The trick
will be to hold on to them until we can help them to see how this is going
to pan out," she said.

The presentation also made her realize that she can "give myself a break,"
because not everyone can be reached, she said.

"Now I know where we need to focus on, that 80 per cent. Especially those
who might come along if we can get the right message."

Miville also said recently their organization was taking a look at their
pamphlets, thinking how terrible they are.

"But who cares, so we don't hand out any pamphlets, let's be the product.
We have to show up, we have to be it."