Building Awareness: Driving and Community Mobility
The mini-grantees each expressed amazement when introduced to the wide range of educational resources available. While grateful to have access to these tools geared toward awareness building and community education, the time required to make selections and tailor materials to the occupational therapy setting presents a realistic challenge. Collectively the group committed to exploring available resources and incorporating them into their projects. The following toolkit resources were developed to address barriers being addressed by the mini-grantees. Some were developed by the authors and others built upon resources already available. All of the tools below are available for your use, to be modified for your setting, for the purpose of expanding services to address driving and community mobility, develop specialized programs and reach out to expand awareness of older driver safety needs in your community.
Getting Started: Building on Resources and Toolkits
The request for community education resources has prompted the development of brochures, factsheets and presentation toolkits. Occupational therapy programs would be wise to explore these resources and to build upon them, striving to not duplicate resources already available and instead to target their efforts and expertise to tailor resources to address the local needs in the community. The following Mini-Grant Toolkit projects built on several resources including the The DriveWell Toolkit developed by The American Society on Aging and The American Medical Association’s Physician’s Guide to Assessing and Counseling Older Drivers, both developed with funds from The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). We invite you to explore the resources available from our partner organizations, to use the tools developed by the mini-grantees and to go beyond and develop educational materials uniquely suited to your setting.
Tailoring Handouts to Target Audiences
When developing a presentation for physicians, the grantee wanted to develop a handout of key points. The following example is a handout organized with categories of information deemed to be of interest to this audience: state guidelines for medical qualifications for driving and state reporting laws, a list of pertinent resources and an abbreviated table correlating medical conditions to crash risk.
The handout accompanying presentations for older drivers and their families included selected web links deemed of interest to that audience.
Tailoring Presentation to your Target Audiences
The mini-grantees identified tailoring presentation to target audiences as a challenge. In response to this need, Dr. Anne Dickerson was contracted as a project consultant to meet with each grantee, assist them in developing their tools, and offer a webinar to all those submitting an RFP. Dr. Dickerson summarized her consultation into a toolkit resource:
Increasing awareness requires that presentation resonate with their target audience. The following toolkit resource will assist you in delivering content to various stakeholder groups. The author familiarizes you with downloadable resources and makes suggestion for how your presentation might build on them.
Example PowerPoint Presentations - a Starting Point
The need for a PowerPoint and script to educate stakeholders was an identified need in many of the toolkit project proposals. The following presentations modified for target audiences are offered as a place to begin. These presentations carry the greatest impact when local relevant information is added. When possible, be sure to add state requirements and reporting laws and a description of the network of services in your community.
This Driving Rehabilitation Program Development Toolkit is the product of a cooperative agreement between the American Occupational Therapy Association and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
