5. Report design
2 Sound Partners for Community Health
LOCALVOICESF O R H E A L T H Y C O M M U N I T I E S
6. 10 Making Sense of Mental Health
The stigma around mental illness is alive and well across
this country. According to the National Institute of Mental
Health, only one-third of Americans who have mental
health problems seek help. In the South, the story is
worse, in part due to poverty and lack of health insurance,
but also because of misinformation that often leads suffer-
ers to try to “pull themselves together and get over it.”
In Birmingham, Alabama, a Sound Partners project
set out to overcome the barriers to discussion of mental
illness and provide information about available services.
To communicate a commonsense understanding of mental
illness, these partners called their effort Making Sense
of Mental Health.14
They wanted to reach the people who
were least likely to seek help for problems like depression,
particularly African Americans and those in the growing
Latino community in central Alabama. They also wanted
to urge policy-makers and community leaders to lead the
charge for better understanding of mental health issues
and more services.
The partnership produced a range of programming and
events that went far beyond traditional media to reach
deep into the community. The Birmingham team brought
together traditional and nontraditional players: a main-
stream public radio station (WBHM), a counseling center
(Oasis), a School of Public Health (University of Alabama)
and a group of commercial African-American radio stations
that aired a soap opera called Bodylove. The partnership
worked because, as Tanya Ott, news director for WBHM,
noted, “We very clearly defined who would be responsible
for what, then let each do what it does best.”
Oasis and the producers of Bodylove started a lively
and energetic collaboration as they reached out to the
African-American and Latino communities. WBHM, the
public radio station, was on a separate but parallel track,
producing weekly features, web pages and e-briefs for its
audience of opinion leaders and policy-makers. The part-
ners honored the “editorial firewall” between the public
radio station and the other key players. WBHM would not
cover Oasis or Bodylove, for example. Despite the firewall,
collaboration between WBHM and the School of Public
Health grew and evolved. Reporters increasingly use the
school as a source of expertise, and Ott is now the grand
rounds lecturer on media and health.
A Traditional Public Broadcaster
WBHM airs classical music and news from National Public
Radio. Its news department consists of three journal-
ists—a news director and two reporters—with a focus
on producing well-crafted features rather than spot news.
Sound Partners offered WBHM the opportunity to immerse
its reporters in the issue of mental health. Programming
included features, interviews, radio postcards, a half-hour
documentary and a call-in show, the first the station had
done in several years. It aired the features during National
Public Radio’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
The station effort went beyond broadcast reporting.
Each feature had its own web page, which included the
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
MAKING SENSE OF MENTAL HEALTH
Stigma is nothing more than ignorance that
can only be cured by knowledge.
—Kathy Sawyer
Alabama Mental Health Commissioner
Top right: James McCarty, Jr. plays Saul
Bottom left: Vanessa Anderson performs as Rozalyn
PhotosbyYokoKawamura
PROFILE
Internal page design and production for report
7. Sound Partners for Community Health 11
script, audio, photos, extended interviews and links to
more information. The station “back-announced” the
programs, referring listeners to the WBHM website for
earlier reports. An e-mail list for weekly e-briefs began
with a small pool of 75 subscribers and grew over a year
to about 600, including policy-makers from nearby states
and Washington, D.C. The e-briefs consolidated research
and stories about mental health issues and added links for
more information.
Using Entertainment to Improve Mental
Health Awareness
“Okay, y’all—just drop whatever you’re doing and turn up
your radio, ’cause it’s time for Bodylove . . . ”
So goes the enticing introduction to Bodylove, a weekly
radio soap opera written by students at the School of
Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham. The
brainchild of Dr. Connie Kohler, an associate professor
in the division of health behavior, Bodylove is the name
of a fictional beauty salon that’s the center of the action.
As with any other soap opera, the goal for Bodylove was
to create a compelling plot that kept the audience tuning
in from week to week; but the inside game was to deliver
health messages that were both folksy and medically
accurate.
The program began in 2004, and focused initially on
diabetes and hypertension. When Sound Partners came
to town, student scriptwriters added a mental health
story line that included a focus on stigma, fear and lack
of information about depression. The action centered
around a character who became depressed and dealt with
it by drinking and skipping work. She was told by another
character to just pray. She attempted suicide and was
hospitalized, which offered numerous opportunities for
commentary on how to handle mental illness.
Bodylove aired on 16 African-American radio stations
across the state, most of them small, locally owned com-
mercial stations with a strong community presence. The
School of Public Health purchased the airtime, and local
stations added their own discussion and call-in shows.
After each program, in-studio panelists chatted about
the story, took listeners’ calls, expanded upon the health
themes and offered links to local health resources.
At the Birmingham station, WJLD, the oldest African-
American station in the state, the call-in was hosted by a
well-known and respected Baptist minister, Ronnie Wil-
liams, who discussed each week’s story with experts in the
studio. Guests answered questions, relating the discussion
to the characters in Bodylove.
A Women’s Center Poised to Help
Oasis is a counseling center that provides therapy and
counseling to low-income women in central Alabama.
Oasis, too, wanted to change negative perceptions about
seeking counseling. Its Sound Partners work began with
focus groups, which helped the center frame depression
around issues of stress and positive health. The center de-
veloped posters and brochures in English and Spanish and
hired a Spanish-speaking therapist to work with Latinas.
Kathy Kane, an Oasis therapist, took on the main
coordinating role for the Sound Partners effort. She spoke
about depression and stress management at community
meetings and churches. She reached out to professionals
WZZA
Tuscumbia
WHIY Moulton
WEUV Huntsville
WEUP-FM Huntsville
WANA Anniston
WJLD Birmingham
WTSK Tuscaloosa
WJUS Marion
WHBB Selma
WKXN WKXK
Montgomery
WTLS Tallassee
WKXN WKXK
Greenville
WKXN WKXK
Troy
WTFMC Monroeville
WJDB Thomasville
WRJX Jackson
BODYLO♥E
BROADCAST AREAS
Ronnie Williams
on the air as the
host of Bodylove
PhotosbyJoanneEdgar
Color tints indicate broadcast areas.
Adapted from a map created by the Department of Geography and the School of Public Health,
University of Alabama Brimingham
8. Sallie Bodie, the author, and
Lawrence “Brad” Bradford
Empowerment Issue June 2006
LOCALVOICES
First Voice: a powerful audio or video story told by the
person to whom it happens. Usually the storyteller is one
who has not been on the airwaves before and is a member
of a group not often heard.
Look into the La Vida! Challenges for Healthy Living project
and you’ll find the meaning of empowerment in the stories of
transformed people who reached out to empower others.
Consider the series that followed Kim Bowman in her
effort to quit smoking using the Colorado Quitline. Bow-
man shared her struggle—as it took place—with a large
radio audience. Shelley Schlender, KGNU Community Radio
coordinator of La Vida! said Bowman’s courageous narrative
hit home with many listeners. One woman said the show
taught her how to support her husband who had quit smoking
and was floundering. “I know how to help. This is enormous.
This is thrilling,” she wrote. Schlender added, “The power of
the story came from capturing the voice of a real person as
she struggled with her addiction and all that the cigarettes
meant to her.”
Another first-voice radio saga recounts the difficulties
Magdaleña, a disabled legal immigrant from Mexico, has in
getting her bills paid by Medicaid, though qualified for the
program. Her granddaughter Diana narrates and conducts
the interviews with her grandmother. During the second
show Euvaldo Valdez, a Medicare ombudsman, comes on
the scene to sort through the stack of bills and complicated
paperwork. Valdez makes call after call to straighten things
out, until, finally—seven months later—the bills start
getting paid.
(Continued on the reverse side.)
If You Can Walk,
You Can Dance
Lawrence Bradford has taught
dance to more than 5,000 stu-
dents from all walks of life and
all ages. Brad, as he is known,
is the founder of the Smooth
and EZ Hand Dance Institute in
Washington, D.C. His organiza-
tion partnered with public radio
station WPFW-FM Pacifica and
the D.C. Department of Health
in Listening4yourHealth—A
Wellness Call to Action! This
ambitious Sound Partners proj-
ect gives practical solutions to
get D.C. citizens to move more,
eat better, and manage stress.
Central to the project are a
variety of movement clubs that
anyone can join. And dancing is
a great way to move.
Brad says anyone can learn
to dance, that it’s like walk-
ing with rhythm. He believes
dance empowers people as
they learn to enjoy themselves
and gain confidence. Read
the whole story online in the
Local Voices PDF version at
www.soundpartners.org •
(Continued on the reverse side.)
PhotobyShelleySchlender
H e a lth y
I m pac t!
B oos t s
C u lt u r a l
C om p e t e n c y
Healthy Impact! in Denver,
Colorado has reduced the
barriers immigrants face
in accessing health care by
helping newcomers develop
skills in managing their own
health care needs. At the same
time, the program has made
policy and training inroads that
are raising the level of cultur-
ally competent care provided
by health practitioners.
A community advisory
committee studied health
disparities between cultural
groups and then issued
a series of recom-
mendations,
some aimed at
the legisla-
tors, others
toward health
educators.
In an effort to make a
system-wide change, Healthy
Impact! study results were used
to produce a CD which was
distributed statewide to physi-
cians, encouraging them to take
a free, online cultural compe-
tency course. Susan Thornton,
project director, is proud of
the result. “We featured local
opinion leaders on the CD .
. . As an incentive, we gave
continuing education credits
for the class, too,” she says.
First Voice Stories
Empower
Individuals and CommunitiesPhotobyGalePetersen
