Project GOAL

Built around a compelling one-hour television special, the goal of the Fred Friendly Seminars multiplatform project, WHEN WAR HITS HOME: PTSD, is to leverage the institutional capacity and strengths of multiple collaborating organizations to:
  • Increase awareness of the complexity of PTSD issues for the military, for the active duty soldier and veteran, for military families, and for the community as veterans are reintegrated.
  • De-stigmatize the mental health challenges facing veterans and promote treatment.
  • Address the psychological challenges of family members significantly affected by PTSD as well their own mental stress surrounding deployment and reintegration.
  • Raise public awareness and provide communication tools to build constituencies in policy, law and law enforcement that promote appropriate and effective engagement with vets with PTSD, especially in crafting alternatives to incarceration.
  • Extend the resources of mental health providers in the military, in the VA and elsewhere who treat active duty military, vets and their families by helping to engage and recruit community-based mental health providers and primary care physicians to meet this public-health crisis.

Campaign VISION

Tentatively targeted to a Veteran's Day premiere, this 18-month project is poised to get underway July, 2010 with the launch of an interactive website that engages members of the military, their families, leading experts in the field of PTSD, and other key stakeholders in the content development, outreach and promotion of the project.

DVDs, educational resource materials, and promotional tools will be distributed through partnering organizations to galvanize engagement with these critical issues at the community level as well as through national professional organizations.

The project will build to a peak of news coverage, grassroots activity, and professional engagement in conjunction with the television premiere of the core program, and then sustain activities that promote veteran and civilian engagement, mental health workforce recruitment, and journalistic interest through December, 2011.

The Fred Friendly Seminars will achieve these goals by:
  • Building on the extensive foundation and institutional relationships established through the MINDS ON THE EDGE project in 2009.
  • Developing and expanding the proven Internet and grassroots audience engagement strategies established by the 2009 project.
  • Collaborating with federal, state and local military and mental health agencies to align key messaging, coordinate with other communications strategies, showcase best practices, and increase access to existing resources.
  • Identifying, recruiting and leveraging the informational and promotional assets of content partners, media partners, corporate partners, and a broad range of nonprofit/community-based organizations.

Project CORE ELEMENTS

  • A high-impact one-hour television special produced by the Fred Friendly Seminars.
  • An extensive website will become a central portal for information on PTSD, the psychological fallout of military service on family members, and resources that promote treatment and support. The site will feature user-generated content from soldiers, veterans and military families; best practices for treatment; information for veterans and their families to empower them to identify their mental health needs and seek help; access to PTSD professional training and treatment resources for mental health providers and primary care physicians. The website will be used to solicit content input during the preproduction phase of the television program.
  • Targeted audience engagement through screenings at national conferences combined with dissemination of resources for grassroots activities. Leveraging strong relationships based on successful collaborations in 2009, FFS will pursue showcase events as plenary sessions at the annual conferences of such organizations as NAMI, the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, that National Campaign for Mental Health Reform, the National Council for Community Behavioral Health Care, The GAINS Center, The National Council of Governors Justice Center, NARSAD, medical education organizations such as APA and the Association of Psychiatric Residency Directors, and the college-campus based Active Minds.

    Expanding from this base we would also target national conferences for veterans, military family organizations, National Guard, primary care physicians, and various sectors of the criminal justice system including judges, sheriffs and police chiefs, corrections officers, and prosecutors.

    Working through these organizations we will distribute DVDs to "issue evangelists" who will act as thought leaders in their community or profession. They will be empowered with resources and hands-on guidance to organize local events that promote civic engagement with the issues and stimulate local news coverage that will reduce stigma and encourage treatment.
  • A strategic national and local media relations campaign will develop key messaging and exploit all news hooks of the program production, television premiere, and events to build awareness of the project and, more importantly -- the issues involved -- to maximize audience engagement with the project and to trigger additional media coverage that will encourage treatment and promote the concepts of resilience and recovery. The media relations campaign will target mainstream media in print, television and radio, web-based media, as well as the critically-important professional trade media and organization communication vehicles that are receptive to deep issue and event coverage.
  • A radio partnership with the Public Radio morning news program, "The Takeaway" hosted by John Hockenberry will feature produced material that complements the program and expands the depth with which the issues are investigated.
  • A partnership with the Real Warriors Campaign of the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury. The Real Warriors Campaign combats the stigma associated with seeking psychological health care and treatment and encourages service members to increase their awareness and use of these resources.
  • Social media partnership with Active Duty Soldiers, Veterans and Military Family organizations will engage these key constituencies in the project content development and encourage grassroots activities.
  • Mental health workforce training in partnership with U.S. Psychiatric Congress and other associations for mental health professionals and primary care physicians.