Planning and preparing for community meetings. You and your fellow presenters or trainers will want to get together in advance of the meeting to agree on your goals for the meeting. You should agree on an agenda and who will be covering what information. It is also an excellent idea to practice your agenda in advance, so that each presenter will hear the content of what the other presenters will be covering. This will facilitate the delivery of a single cohesive presentation, rather than the delivery of a series of mini-presentations. Planning ahead for room set-up, audio-visual needs, and adequate quantities of handout materials is also a great asset in conducting a productive meeting or training session.

Being prepared for difficult questions. Since this is a topic that can provoke difficult questions and strong emotions, anticipating the kinds of questions that may be received and how best to respond to these questions is advantageous. At the end of Section 1, you will find an example of the types of questions that typically arise at these meetings. You will, of course, want to anticipate your answers, being as specific as you can and as sensitive to local issues and concerns as possible. This list provides some suggested answers to questions as a place for you to start.