PROVIDER TRAININGS

Goals of AC-DHS Training and Technical Assistance for its Funded Providers

Capacity building for the SUD prevention, intervention, recovery and treatment workforce, via new skills, strategies and tactics to better engage and serve vulnerable and marginalized populations.
Empower providers with the skills and strategies to effectively present trauma-informed and culturally-relevant information about options for SUD treatment and recovery.
Foster increased collaboration among and across the SUD provider community.
Reduce health disparities and address systemic inequalities in accessing SUD treatment services in the County.
Better equip SUD recovery and treatment providers to be “Senders” of campaign messages, by understanding why and how to use culturally relevant communication channels to initiate and support the behavior-change process among African Americans and other underserved populations in need of treatment for and recovery from SUD.

Session 1 (Phase 1/Year 1):

Trauma-Informed Behavior-Change Communications: Tackling Inequities from the Ground Up

Trauma-Informed Behavior Change Communications is designed so participants learn how to develop trauma-informed and culturally-relevant health communications messaging that resonates with low-income communities of color and other populations impacted by SUD disparities and encourages sustainable behavioral and lifestyle changes. It addresses why traditional forms of health communications may not be cost-effective or culturally-sensitive, and also how they may be insulting to low-income audiences and counter-productive to a SUD prevention, intervention, treatment or recovery program’s goals.

This session will enhance participants’ behavioral-health communication skills and their ability to build credibility and trusting relationships with their respective target audiences, increasing both impact and effectiveness. Participants will also learn about the unique social determinants (including ongoing exposure to stress and trauma) that low-income, vulnerable and under-resourced residents face—potentially leading them to attempt to cope with drugs or alcohol. Knowing and understanding these determinants will increase empathy within the provider community and better prepare frontline and outreach staff to build trusting relationships with those who have not previously been well-served by “systems.” The workshop incorporates research-based and community-tested strategies that can be used immediately, even by agencies and organizations that have been struggling to effectively engage the underserved populations that could most benefit from their SUD programs and services.

read more — Key Topics Covered in This Workshop:

Part 1 – MEE’s Message Development Model for Oral-Based Cultures

- What is Behavioral Health Communications?
- Health Communications Model Overview: Sender | Message | Channel | Receiver
- MEE’s Approach to Behavioral Health Communications – Flipping the Model (Right to Left)
  - Starting with the Receiver
  - Understanding the Importance of Oral Communications Culture (OCC)

Part 2 – The Most Culturally-Relevant and Cost-Effective Delivery Channels for Behavioral Health

Many of the same communication-message misfires around SUD from the early 1990’s are still playing out, just on message-delivery platforms driven by technology and digital media. Both new messaging and new delivery strategies are needed. Now, the latest technology, whether it is a Website, mobile app or social media, needs to be paired with what MEE calls “human-ology”—face-to face interactions among members of a community. Even though many people spend hours of each day using their smartphone or online platforms, interpersonal dialogue with peers and others in their communities is still a vital part of the equation. To promote real behavior change among hard-to-reach audiences, there is no one size-fits-all strategy. These days, SUD treatment, recovery and prevention providers will need to use a combination of digital outreach (high tech) and on-the-ground encounters (high touch) to interact with the low-income communities they should serve and hope to engage.

“Community as a Channel” Introduction
Online (Technology) vs. Offline (Human-ology) Channels
SUD-Related Message Development, including Embedding effective Counter-Arguments
Understanding that Due to the Serious, Life-and-Death Implications of SUD, the most culturally-relevant and resonant engagement messages reference not only to stress & trauma, but also to resilience, healing and recovery.

As a result of exploring these topics, participants will:

Increase their awareness and understanding of the worldview and specific cultural and communication dynamics of low-income Allegheny County communities facing the highest SUD disparities.
Identify key differences between oral-based and literate-based cultures.
Gain information and context that enhances empathy for clients who reflect different backgrounds, experiences and worldviews from outreach and other staff at the SUD providers, agencies and programs designed to serve them.
Learn the steps required to develop trauma-informed, culturally relevant messaging and materials, including how to develop messages that embed references to stress & trauma, resilience and healing/recovery, so that they resonate with families and community leaders who live in at-risk environments.
Enhance participants’ communication and outreach skills with vulnerable populations, including low-income African Americans and LGBTQ+ of color, through practical, community-tested strategies that not only focus on “what to say,” but also “how to say it.”
Participate in hands-on, interactive argument/counter-argument exercises to prepare SUD providers for an authentic, and ultimately, effective public health dialogue with families living in marginalized and vulnerable communities.
Practice how to present street-credible, authentic and culturally relevant SUD recovery and treatment information in such a way that lifestyle changes are sustainable in the context of busy, economically-challenged and stressed-out lives.

Link to Zoom Registration for Session 1

Session 2 (Phase 1/Year 1):

Community-Engagement Concepts for Countering Trauma, Disparities and Lack of Trust

Authentic, on-the-ground community engagement needs to be part of an SUD Provider’s / Professional’s Toolbox, even though this approach is often ignored because it is perceived as “too hard” to pull off. MEE will provide an understanding of the importance of community mobilization as a communications channel. The training will address why community engagement is an essential, cost-efficient and effective approach to engaging and building ongoing relationships with hard-to-reach populations, including those who have been historically mistreated or underserved by government agencies…leading to mistrust, resentment and resistance. Knowing how to do the roll-up-your-sleeves, boots-on-the- ground, face-to-face dialogue with oral-based cultures will help build trust and enhance the key community relationships that will sustain the County’s SUD work.

Community engagement and developing grassroots partnership are core elements of MEE’s approach to behavior change. SAMSHA’s Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) has been adopted by many communities across the country seeking to change outcomes related to substance misuse prevention and harm reduction. MEE adapts the SPF to engage communities (particularly with oral-based cultures) who have been mistreated by the systems and institutions that are supposed to serve and assist them. In its three decades of working in communities with the highest health disparities, MEE has used and refined its “by-and-for” intervention development and rollout model, which parallels many of the components in the SPF. In this training, MEE highlights the similarities in these community-centered models, and describes how its model provides a strength-based approach to dealing with the daily realities of the marginalized and vulnerable populations.

This framing is particularly effective when attempting to engage community members from oral-based cultures who have been mistreated by the systems and institutions that are supposed to serve and assist them. Many residents are skeptical and suspicious, with low levels of confidence even in well-meaning initiatives. While residents often don’t trust institutions, they do trust the grassroots opinion leaders and community-based organizations they interact with on a daily basis. Leveraging these relationships takes time and effort, but can also lead to lasting connections that ultimately result in improved outcomes and community norms.

Many agencies, organizations and coalitions either don’t know how or are struggling to engage trusted influencers of affected (targeted) communities. People ask MEE all the time, “How are your community engagement tactics different from others in behavioral health?” Of course, “How” is an important piece of the puzzle. But it’s more important to understand the “Why” before the “How.”

Session 3 (Phase 2/Year 1):

Digital Community Engagement Toolkit Training

This training provides instruction and support in using the user friendly “Connect to Protect” Digital Community Engagement Toolkit. It contains information and content on the “what, when, why and how” of SUD recovery and treatment options so that our grassroots campaign partners can help explain these elements to our target audience of families and friends in ethnic, minority and marginalized communities in Allegheny County.

Participants will review the campaign messages and materials and learn how they can use them to execute effective and impactful outreach and engagement. They will also learn how they can be customized to co-brand their provider organization, and meet the specific needs and interests of their community, along with increasing visibility of their organization’s efforts and promoting their specific services.

Session 4 (Phase 3/Year 2 Optional):

Creating Safe Spaces for Communities of Color

Co-facilitated by MEE partner, Sulaiman Nuriddin M. Ed. and a local, community-embedded therapist of color within Allegheny County, this interactive workshop is a professional development opportunity for any providers or clinical staff (including home visitors and therapists) who work directly with families and individuals impacted by SUD. The workshop is designed to improve participants’ cultural competency and ability to effectively communicate about the range of prevention, intervention, recovery and treatment options with communities of color.

This workshop will enhance participants’ communication and outreach skills and enhance their ability to create more positive interactions with both families of color, in order to foster and support healthy interpersonal relationships within them (including reconciliation and reunification), promote open communication about SUD and reduce the potential for intimate partner violence or domestic abuse.