The Ask
Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs) have been available in Massachusetts since 2018. In the summer of 2024, the law was expanded to include additional professions who can act as petitioners. We were engaged to educate potential petitioners on the use of ERPO when appropriate to reduce incidents of firearm violence, particularly amongst the professional petitioner audiences of healthcare workers, school administrators, and law enforcement.
The Research
In speaking with various stakeholder groups, including national experts, local advocates, legal experts, and members of our professional target audiences, we learned the following:
In MA, people have many tools available to protect themselves and others from firearm violence. That has an impact on how people think about ERPO.
Professional participants showed less interest in ERPO in general and more about how it works in their specific circumstances.
All professional audiences are looking for support as they make decisions about ERPO.
Law enforcement have the highest level of awareness of ERPOs, but aren’t regularly filing or talking about them.
While healthcare providers have some awareness of ERPO, their primary concern is patient trust and confidentiality.
School administrators have the least awareness but the most openness to learning more about filing ERPOs
The Strategy
ERPO is a complex, high-stakes legal procedure that’s been added to a comprehensive landscape of policies and intervention strategies designed to prevent firearm violence in Massachusetts. And while ERPO is a tool available to law enforcement, healthcare providers, and school administrators alike, each of these audiences work in different contexts and have other means available to them (some more than others) to act in a high risk situation involving firearms.
In a crowded marketplace where people have a lot of options, what makes our audience pay attention to a tool like ERPO is understanding how it’s different and why it’s relevant to them as professionals. By focusing on “extreme risk,” we can achieve both differentiation and relevance. By making a clear connection between situations of extreme risk and ERPO as a tool – and helping people recognize those situations in their professional context – we’ll make it more likely that our audiences know how to use ERPO when it counts.
Step 1: Framing (Why ERPO?)
As a frontline worker, you encounter risk every day. But when that risk involves access to a firearm, it can become extreme. And that’s why Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO) are here—to help you prevent a worst case scenario from becoming a reality. Now is the time to learn about ERPO: when they’re warranted, what it takes to file one, and how filing may impact you and those you’re tryin to protect. Even if you have other ways to intervene, ERPO is a tool that you need to know. Because, in the right situation, it could very well be the one tool you need.
With this framing in place, our next step was to develop a marketing strategy to inform professional audiences about ERPO. Making information available is not enough; we need to grab our audiences attention and give them a reason to engage with our information.
Step 2: Marketing Strategy
Goal (our task): Make sure that professional petitioner audiences know ERPO is a tool available to them to intervene in extreme situations involving a firearm.
Action (what we need people to do in order to achieve the task): Become aware of and seek out information about ERPO to understand when it is relevant for you given your professional context
Audience: New Petitioner Audiences (School Administrators & Healthcare Providers)
Market (the competing messages and ideas in our audiences’ mid):
School Admin have little to no exposure to firearms on a daily basis; but are hyper aware of and concerned about the increase in school shootings. They are most open to a new tool accessible to them.
Healthcare professionals have experience dealing with situations of high risk, but prioritize trust and confidentiality with patients. They are open to trying a new tool, depending on the context.
Key Motivating Factor (the benefit that is most likely to motivate our audience to take action): With ERPO, I now have all the tools I need to make a better decision in an extreme risk situation involving a firearm.
There are many firearm risk intervention tools available in MA, but for many, ERPO is new and unfamiliar.
ERPO is a civil, non criminal, procedure that won’t negatively impact a person’s record and only temporarily removes firearm possession.
ERPO empowers you to take action when individuals are at their most vulnerable and gives you the opportunity to intervene before gun-related tragedies happen.
You can file an ERPO, but you also aren’t alone. You can always reach out to law enforcement or other professionals to help advise on when and how to file an ERPO.
As a frontline worker, you may be in a position to help educate the high-risk audiences you serve about ERPO and how it can impact them.
Top-line Message: You now have ERPO, a tool that can help you protect your community and prevent harm in an extreme situation involving a firearm
CTA: Learn more about Extreme Risk Protection Orders and when and how to file one at mass.gov/extreme-risk-protection-orders
Voice & Tone: Urgent; Matter-of-fact; Knowing; Real