Announcing A New Method for Delivering
Parenting Newsletters
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Memo on E-Delivery of Parenting Newsletters
BENEFITS TO FLE:
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Free resource for families (only cost is a small amount of your time), which
appeals to local partners.
Much less labor to distribute than the printed newsletter – primarily involves
advertising to let parents know how to register for this option.
Automatic delivery of Parenting the First Year and Parenting the Second and
Third Years. Parents sign up just once to receive all three years of the
newsletters.
Automatic tallying of how many families you reach in your county each year
through this system.
Automatic web-based evaluation with regular results for you.
The monthly email reminders parents receive will look like they come from your
county Extension office (the banner and sidebar from your county Extension
website will be visible).
HOW IT WORKS:
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As either a choice (paper or e-delivery) or a stand-alone delivery method.
Initially you might want to give parents a choice. Then you could plan an
evaluation to compare the results for the two different delivery methods (we will
help).
The new Parenting Website (see address below) where you can subscribe to edelivery is active. You can try it yourself (pretend you have a one-month-old
baby), and you can begin to deliver our UWEX parenting newsletters to parents in
your county, by directing them to the Parenting homepage where they can sign up
for e-delivery.
The computer generates an automatic monthly email alert with a link to the
newsletter specific to their child’s age. This monthly alert page also advertises
other Extension bulletins.
Here are some suggestions for how to recruit people to the e-delivery system:
1. If you have been distributing the newsletters through the mail, use your
local project partners to help advertise e-delivery of the newsletters. If
you haven’t been distributing, you can develop a partnership with others in
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your community who are interested in providing this resource for parents
(partners for the project have often included local hospitals, health
departments, and Kiwanis groups).
2. At the hospital, have parents give their consent to receive the e-newsletter
(provide their email address and their child’s birth date). This could be
done as an add-on to existing hospital forms, for example the form to
release the birth announcement to the newspaper. If parents give consent,
then you or one of your project partners (such as the hospital) could sign
the parent up for e-delivery.
3. At the hospital, give parents a free sample of the newsletter (Month 1
issue), so they can see if they’d like to sign up to receive the rest of the
series. Then parents can sign up at home to receive the newsletters.
4. Use the advertisement flyer (we provide) which can be posted or handed
out in pediatric offices, hospitals, childbirth classes, WIC clinics, Family
Resource Centers, parenting classes, libraries, etc. that gives parents the
web address where they can sign up to receive the newsletters
5. Put a link to the registration form on your county Extension website
6. Use the press release (we provide) in the local newspaper to advertise how
parents can sign up for free e-delivery of the parenting newsletters.
Automatic web based evaluation at 12 months (reminder at 13 months), with the
final issues of Parenting the First Year; and then automated delivery of Parenting
the Second and Third Years (parents don’t have to re-register). Also automatic
web based evaluation at 33-34 months (reminder at 35-36 months)
OPTIONS:
IF CURRENTLY DISTRIBUTING THE NEWSLETTERS:
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Continue with present delivery system (printed copies).
Add an option. Parents can opt to receive Parenting the First Year either
through the mail, or by e-delivery (Racine County does this).
Drop mailed delivery and offer only e-delivery (NOTE: this may exclude
some families who don’t have Internet access. We recommend keeping the
choice of mailed delivery).
IF CURRENTLY NOT DISTRIBUTING:
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Begin newsletter delivery through this low-cost method.
The only cost is your time to set up a way to recruit new parents.
At the end of each year, we will give you a tally of “teaching contacts” you
generated through this system.
TO SIGN UP FOR E-DELIVERY GO TO THE UWEX PARENTING SITE:
http://parenting.uwex.edu
Then click on the “subscribe” button
TO SEE OUR WEBSITE FOR YOU, THE PARENT EDUCATOR:
http://fyi.uwex.edu/using-parenting-newsletters