This training series empowers SUD providers and their community-engagement teams with the communication skills, strategies and tactics to effectively present trauma-informed and culturally-relevant information about options for SUD treatment and recovery. SUD services providers and selected AC-DHS staff working in the hardest-hit communities will be better equipped to be effective message senders, by understanding oral communication culture and “why & how” to use culturally relevant communication channels to start and support the behavior-change process among low-income BIPOC populations in need of treatment for and recovery from a substance use disorder (SUD).
By building the outreach and engagement capacity and capabilities of Allegheny County’s SUD workforce, frontline staff will be able to better engage and serve low income, vulnerable and marginalized populations. This need is critical, since these same residents have endured many negative experiences in encounters with mainstream institutions (including human-services providers). Therefore, the groundwork to counter and overcome trauma, disparities and lack of trust is essential. Engaging with respect, understanding and empathy will allow the County and its providers to begin to reduce health disparities and address systemic inequalities in accessing SUD treatment and recovery services. These workshops will build their capacity and cultural competency skills so that they can respectfully and effectively support the most at risk and currently residents in navigating the system to get to the services they need and deserve
Training Offerings
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“Trauma-Informed Behavior Change Communications” is designed so participants learn how to develop trauma-informed and culturally-relevant population-health communications that resonates with low-income communities of color and other oral-communication-based populations impacted by SUD disparities and encourages sustainable changes in stigmas, behaviors and lifestyle. 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.
Three interactive, in-person sessions of this workshop were delivered in 2024; the content will also be offered as part of workshops, training sessions and technical assistance offered in 2025-26. These sessions 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. In the half-day workshops, participants have learned about the unique social determinants of health (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 and better prepare frontline and outreach staff to build trusting relationships with those who have not previously been well-served by “systems.” The workshops incorporate 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 (such as returning citizens and residents most impacted by community violence) that could most benefit from their SUD programs and services. They will support the County’s work to increase awareness of substance-use resources, medication-assisted treatment (MAT) options and appropriate recovery supports.
Part 1: MEE’s Message-Development Model for Oral-Based Culture
What is Behavioral Health Communications?
- The Health Communications Model Overview: Sender | Message | Channel | Receiver
- MEE’s Approach to Behavioral Health Communications – Flipping the Model (Right to Left)
– Starting with the Receivers and Their Worldview
– Understanding the Importance of Oral Communications Culture (OCC) to the Receiver
Part 2 – The Most Culturally-Relevant Messages for the Most Credible 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 a social media platform (and digital still must be culturally-relevant), needs to be paired with what MEE calls “human-ology” — interpersonal (virtual or face-to-face) interactions with members of a community.
Even though many people now spend hours of each day in front of screens, using their smartphone or online platforms, interpersonal dialogue with peers and others within their social networks is what leads to sustainable behavior-change. These days, SUD treatment and recovery and overdose-prevention providers and behavioral-health agencies will need to use a combination of digital outreach (high-tech) and on-the-ground encounters (high-touch) to interact persuasively with the low-income communities they serve and hope to engage.
- Online (Technology) vs. Offline (Human-ology) Channels
- Introduction to “Community as a Channel”
- SUD-Related Message Development that Engages Communities, including Embedding Effective Counter-Arguments to Barriers, Suspicions and Fears.
- Understanding that due to the serious, life-and-death implications of SUD, the most culturally-relevant and resonant engagement messages are “balanced” – referencing not only to risk factors related to chronic stress & trauma, but also to the strengths (protective) related to resilience, healing and recovery.
As a result of exploring these topics, workshop participants:
- Increase their awareness and understanding of the worldview and specific cultural and communication dynamics of low-income communities of color in Allegheny County facing the highest SUD and other health disparities.
- Identify and classify key differences between oral-based and literate-based cultures.
- Understand how to apply the important concept of “context” so that it creates/builds trusting relationships with clients who reflect different backgrounds, experiences and worldviews from outreach and other staff at the SUD providers, agencies and programs designed to serve historically mistreated communities.
- Are able to select the most effective communication and outreach strategies to use with vulnerable populations, including low-income BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals of color.
- Understand the connection between “what to say” and “how to say it.”
- Defend potential behavioral resistance to emerging SUD treatment modalities such as medication-assisted treatment in role play, active argument/counter argument exercises with peers, demonstrating efficacy in authentic dialogue with families living in marginalized and vulnerable communities.
- Are equipped to execute all of the steps required to develop trauma-informed, culturally relevant messages and materials, including how to develop messages that embed references to stress and trauma, resilience and healing/recovery, so that they resonate with families and community leaders who live in at-risk environments.
- Can implement the presentation of street-credible, authentic and culturally relevant information in such a way that lifestyle changes are sustainable in the context of busy, economically-challenged and stressed-out lives.
- Learn the protective factors that facilitate thriving coping behaviors and “upstream” primary prevention.
- List the risk factors (including ongoing stress) and daunting social determinants of health (SDOH) that continue to keep low-income, Black and Brown families at a disproportionate disadvantage for survival, along with the protective factors that can inoculate them against the stressors and facilitate thriving coping behaviors, SUD recovery and even “upstream” primary SUD prevention.
Reactions from Workshop Attendees:
- “I have already shared with my leadership regarding the training, as I think it can be effective for a change in our work culture.”
- “Very useful to help develop my team’s approach and workflow with how we ensure all populations are engaged and supported effectively.”
- “I think every bit of information that we discussed today will be useful in strengthening engagement with any of the populations we work with.”
- “I think this will help us step out of our bias on what the community needs, and step into what our community actually needs.”
- “I will continue to be mindful of who my audience is, the ‘why’ of what brings me to the work and what’s the best way for my target to receive the information.”
Click here to view a recap of the December 2024 “Trauma-Informed Behavior-Change Communications” Workshops.
Check back on this “Get Trained” page or fill out our Workshop Interest Form for offering dates for this workshop in 2025-26.
Optional 2025-26 Session: Community-Engagement Concepts for Countering Trauma, Disparities and Lack of Trust
Authentic, on-the-ground community engagement needs to be part of any SUD provider’s/ professional’s Toolbox, even though this approach is often ignored because it is perceived as “too hard” to pull off. MEE provides an understanding of the importance of community mobilization as a communications channel. The training addresses why community engagement is an essential, cost-efficient and more 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 needed to face health disparities head-on and begin to reduce inequities.
- Overview of MEE’s culturally-relevant community outreach and mobilization strategies..
- Learn why and how to effectively engage community leaders in order to mobilize residents for community-wide dialogue by involving and leveraging numerous access touchpoints.
- Discuss the negative experiences vulnerable populations have encountered with mainstream institutions (including human-services providers) and how community engagement can work to counter trauma, disparities and lack of trust.
- A demonstration of how community-engagement models are not just inclusive, but also support long-term sustainability, by creating trusted relationships with community members, but also increasing their own skills/capacity to improve outcomes into the future.
Every successful MEE campaign has a community-engagement component central to it — we value and prioritize it. MEE’s community-engagement approach and models have been tested and proven over more than three decades of experience in urban and underserved communities. MEE’s three (3) evidence-based models take a “bottom up” rather than “top down” approach to engaging communities. They are also trauma-informed, reflecting the often harsh economic and social realities of underserved populations. Finally, the models are community-developed, not adopted from mainstream interventions; they extensively involve the target audience in their development and implementation.
As a result of exploring these topics, participants in this workshop can:
- Increase their awareness and understanding of authentic, on-the-ground community engagement as part of a public- or behavioral-health professional’s “toolbox” and are able to apply it to counter a lack of trust in mainstream institutions, even though this approach is often ignored because it is perceived as “too hard” to pull off.
- Create and leverage a network of community partners as a message-delivery channel that can be both more culturally-relevant and cost-effective than mainstream, traditional media.
- Understand why the best use for even the latest digital technology (high-tech) is as a mechanism to drive as many members of hard-to-reach audiences as possible to on-the-ground, community-based encounters (high-touch) where authentic dialogue can take place. A circular framework then allows these audiences to use digital solutions like social media platforms to maintain the established relationship and/or to seek more detailed information as needed.
AC-DHS-funded drug and alcohol services providers who gain skills in effective community engagement will have a blueprint for developing lasting connections that restore and build trust with skeptical residents and address a range of health disparities and inequities (i.e., SUDs) in low-income communities of color. Building this type of credibility increases both impact and effectiveness.
Workshop Details: This 3-hour interactive workshop can be delivered online or in-person. Attendance includes access to MEE’s Community Engagement Resource Portal.
Optional 2025-26 Session: Creating Safe Spaces for Men and Families of Color
The “Creating Safe Spaces” workshop enhances the ability of public-facing staff to create more welcoming environments and positive interactions with men and families of color in the County, including returning citizens. Co-facilitated with MEE partner, Sulaiman Nuriddin M.Ed., this interactive, 3-hour workshop is a professional development opportunity for providers or clinical staff (including frontline, outreach, home visitors and therapists) who work directly with families and individuals impacted by substance-use disorders and other health disparities. 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. It also provides strategies and tactics for effectively communicating with men returning from incarceration or recovering from addiction, in order to support their wellness and their return to their families/communities.
This workshop helps participants create more welcoming environments and positive interactions with both African-American men and families of color, in order to foster and support healthy interpersonal relationships within them (including reconciliation and reunification), promote open communication about the impact of SUDs and reduce the potential for domestic abuse or partner violence.
As a result of exploring these topics, participants:
- Gain information and context that enhances empathy for clients who reflect different backgrounds, experiences and worldviews from outreach and other staff at the agencies and programs designed to serve them.
- Engage in discussions and activities to contextualize the experiences and worldviews of people of color and how they are negatively impacted by stereotypes and misperceptions.
- Increase their awareness and understanding of the worldview and specific cultural and interpersonal communication dynamics of people of color.
- Gain tips on how to support people of color in being present in their intimate and family relationships, address struggles related to power and control issues, and navigate one’s behavioral health and SUD in the family.
- Participate in hands-on, interactive role exercises to prepare them for an authentic, and ultimately, effective dialogue with communities of color, including African-American men and fathers.
- Learn how to foster safe spaces where men of color can discuss learned masculinity, make sense of their own feelings and support the feelings of others, so that they can actively participate in or support SUD recovery and treatment efforts.
Workshop Details: This 3-hour interactive workshop can be delivered online or in-person. Attendance includes access to MEE’s Community Engagement Resource Portal
Part 1 – What’s in the Digital Toolkit
- How to access and use the Toolkit
- Review of the Toolkit components and campaign communications assets: website, YouTube channel (including family testimonials), ready-to-share social media posts, print and promotional materials to support community outreach and engagement
- Campaign branding and other graphics
- Links to MEE’s community-engagement resources
Part 2 – Recruiting Local Families Impacted by SUDs to Your Events
- How to share Toolkit content with your personal and professional networks
- Sharing campaign social media (in the language and style that reflects your community) to help raise awareness and support your event
- Customizing content for various platforms (Facebook; Instagram; TikTok; YouTube, etc.)
Part 3 – Community Engagement and Event Support
- Planning, promoting and executing community events (online and in-person logistics)
- Requesting support for your event (social media cross-promotion, campaign banners/ signage, promotional items for giveaways, stipends for attendance and/or staffing support)
- Creating safe spaces to discuss difficult or personal topics