Hey, life, slow down a little, would ya?

-- Rachel Wright

This semester is absolutely flying by! I can’t believe it’s already the middle of October… I need to start thinking of Halloween costumes, then it’s Thanksgiving and family-mania, then GRADUATION and Christmas, New Year’s and starting my life after college. Whoa. Well, that’s a conversation for blog 3. Right now, I need to talk about my lovely PR Campaigns group: Team Heroes. I honestly can’t remember why we chose that name, but I remember laughing about it, which we do a lot. It’s bitter-sweet to work with Lark, Michael, AJ and Lesha this semester. Because we get along so well, but we’re all graduating in December so we probably won’t see much of each other after this. We all have similar laid back personalities but we’re driven, too. That combination makes working as a team an utter breeze.

We’re working for the Center for Children and Families, Inc. (CCFI), a nonprofit United Way organization here in Norman. CCFI offers services to families struggling with abuse and neglect. The nonprofit has five programs:

Divorce Visitation Arbitration – CCFI provides a safe and nurturing environment for mediation, education visitation services and child advocacy for families who are divorced or separated. This program works towards reducing stress on children involved in these situations and strengthening parent-child relationships.

Neighborhood Centers – CCFI strengthens communities by providing opportunities for neighborhood residents to build relationships through fun, accessible and structured activities at safe neighborhood locations during out of school times. Safe neighborhoods present environments for happy kids and healthy families.

Teenage Parenting – CCFI offers support and education for pregnant and parenting teenagers to increase the likelihood of healthy outcomes for their children. CCFI staff works with young parents to teach them how to create safe, nurturing lifestyles for their families through intensive contact, case management and advocacy with local services.

Parents Assistance – CCFI staff members and volunteers work with parents to build stronger families by educating parents, have “play therapy” with their children and counseling families struggling with issues of abuse and neglect.

Extended Families – An extension of the Parents Assistance program, this plan provides short-term emergency foster care for children up to 18 years old, who may need a refuge while dealing with homelessness, mental illness, domestic violence or substance abuse.


The organization hired their first PR professional, Whitney, only 6 months ago, so needless to say the PR Pro is beyond swamped. Aside from trying to catch up from over thirty years with no public relations department, Whitney and crew want to increase the media visibility of CCFI. That is to say, the ultimate goal of our campaign is to establish the Center for Children and Families, Inc. as a media expert. When media professionals need expertise on topics such as abuse and neglect, we want them to think of CCFI first.

Our team is planning a media event, for which we will invite media professionals from central Oklahoma to Norman to learn about CCFI. We’re planning to hold this event during the week of Thanksgiving: National Family Week. On top of that, we’re proclaiming November 19th, 2008 as the City of Norman’s Family Development Day, through the Mayor’s office. Our speaker will talk about ways to cope with family stress during the holidays. We hope that our efforts will prove worthwhile by exposing the self-proclaimed “best kept secret in Norman:” CCFI.