Ask the Question: Ask with Strategic Intent

Transcript of video:

Before an organization begins a practice of identifying Service members, Veterans and/or their family members it is necessary for the organization’s internal team to identify for themselves what the strategic intent is behind asking and identifying.      Consider why you need to ask—          what do you want for an outcome?      Knowing why you’re asking before you ask will allow the team to carefully craft the form in which the client/customer/patient is being asked and then, consequently, what form their answers can take. Strategic intent up front will help you avoid collecting information that is not useful to you, your organization or the person you are serving.    A great example of what can happen if you are not carefully strategic about this in the beginning is a survey that has been distributed to youth in New Hampshire. The survey is designed to identify youth at risk for certain behaviors and is given annually. The survey asks “Has anyone in your family ever served in the military?”.  There is no further explanation or defining guidelines for answering this question. One year, evaluators of the survey responses picked up on the fact that many more youth self-identified themselves as being part of a military family than would have been expected given estimates of how many military families were living in the state at the time of the survey. Further investigation uncovered that a large number of youth who answered “yes” to that question were proudly referring to uncles, aunts, grandparents, great-grandparents or even ancestors who had served generations ago. The intention of the question had been to identify youth of military families—youth who had a parent or immediate household family member currently serving in the military or who had previously served in the military. But because the question was not specific enough, the results were then not useful at all to those who needed the information. Researchers and local providers wanted to know what problems or challenges existed for the youth military/Veteran families in the community today. The service history of a child’s ancestor who served in World War 2 cannot be clearly linked to risks the child may experience today and is not substantially relevant.    Some organizations will want to know if a customer is currently and actively serving or if they have previously served. It will be important for some to know where and when the customer served because it that information could influence treatment decisions or what might be available for resources. Some will be interested in tracking the needs and outcomes related to spouses or family members of those served. If your organization needs to know more information about service or the customer’s relation to the person who served, then follow up questions will be required and should be carefully considered.     Another example to learn from with regards to how data can be skewed if not collected properly comes from a group of mental health professionals who were collecting and analyzing data related to Service members, Veterans and their family members and risk factors for mental health challenges. All practices participating in the project agreed to identify SMVF at the time of intake. They all asked “Have you or anyone in your immediate family ever served in the military?”. They clearly identified “immediate family” which was good. But, when someone answered “yes”, they did not then drill down to find out if the person answering was the one who served or was the family member. Data collected showed that this group of clients were at higher risk in a variety of categories, but it was not clear who the individuals were exactly so it ended up not being as useful as it could have been in that form.   The final step I want to recommend to you today that will help you to be strategic in your efforts to identify SMVF is to formalize and operationalize the way you will identify the population in order to sustain this as a new policy or practice.    Developing formalized policies and/or practices are the ways to ensure that the initiative and efforts do not subside or get lost over time. Over the course of an organization’s lifetime, there will be turn over in staff and there will not always be someone as passionate as you about identifying the SMVF being served by your organization. Engage leadership and appropriate staff in the organization to formalize a process that can be documented in policies and practices. This will help new staff learn the procedure, its importance and how to seamlessly incorporate it into their routines. It will also ensure consistency throughout the process and a clear understanding among staff about roles and responsibilities related to what happens when the answer to “Have you or anyone in your family ever served in the military?” is “yes”.  Organizations are encouraged to take the time necessary to explore what happens when someone answers “yes” to that question. Start from the very beginning—who is the first person to see that answer or who should be the first person to look for that answer and what will they be expected to do with it?  Identify each staff person or program where that information will be passed or shared and identify what happens with that information when it is received and where it goes next. Be very clear and document the process in writing to share with all employees and customers.    The Ask the Question Toolkit developed in New Hampshire is publicly available on the NH State Department of Military Affairs and Veterans Services website for any interested party inside or outside New Hampshire. It goes into detail about how to effectively Ask the Question and provides tools and resources for helping organizations do that. As you work to develop a policy or practice around identifying SMVF, carefully consider why you’re asking, what information you want to get as a result of asking and how that information should be used in a formalized way to benefit the person you are serving. You can access the Ask the Question Toolkit by using the QR code shown.