The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP)
established the Community Partnership Demonstration Grant Program
in 1990 to reduce alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) problems
in communities throughout the United States by building local
coalitions of multiple agencies and organizations, community groups,
and hard-to-reach, high-risk groups. The intent is for the partnerships
to involve their communities in planning and developing comprehensive,
long-term strategies for prevention of ATOD problems so that the
success of different community approaches for prevention can be
comparatively evaluated.
The CSAP Community Partnership Training (CCPT) program
was established to provide training support services on organizational
development strategies, planning, and ATOD prevention strategies
to CSAP partnership grantees. The training and development activities
are intended to facilitate the goal of empowering communities
for effective ATOD problem prevention. This Community Training
Workshop was developed under the CCPT contract.
CCPT's goals are to assist partnerships in:
Developing and nurturing an effective organization;
Ensuring that the membership reflects the diverse
cultures and sectors of the community;
Gaining the knowledge, abilities, skills, and
motivation they need to plan and coordinate comprehensive ATOD
problem prevention strategies in, and with, their communities.
CCPT has developed a comprehensive set of training
programs to meet its overall goals and objectives. The program
is composed of several institutes and a number of community training
workshops.
This Institute is called "basic" because
it is intended to address fundamental organizational development
issues facing new partnerships. It is designed to provide new
ways of looking at community collaboration and involvement.
Institute for Partnership Development (IPD)
The IPD is designed for partnerships that have
completed early organizing and planning work and have become ready
to fill gaps in their community ATOD prevention system.
Cultural Specific Institutes
These are intended to facilitate the work of
diverse cultural groups in mounting effective, comprehensive ATOD
prevention both within their own groups and with one another. The Cultural Specific Institutes are:
These workshops are designed to address a variety
of specific skills related to the work of the partnerships. In
addition to CSAP-funded partnership members, the workshops are
open to community ATOD problem prevention professionals, volunteers,
and coalition members. All workshops are designed with community
input, and sessions are interactive and participatory. Most are
limited to 60 participants.
This manual is intended to be used by trainers and
facilitators to prepare for training and to guide the delivery
of training. It details for trainers what is to be covered in
presentations and how to set up, conduct and process group activities.
Trainers are expected to draw upon their own knowledge and expertise
in the subject area to enrich the training and to provide relevant
examples and illustrations, while maintaining the integrity of
the training design as presented in the manual.
The manual is organized by training modules. These
are arranged in sequence according to a logical flow. Each module
stands alone as a block of instruction, but is connected to all
others as an integrated whole.
The following information is included for each module
in the workshop:
Title.
Day and time for the module.
Purpose of the module.
Learning objectives in terms of intended outcomes
for participants.
A list of major sections of the module, including
the time allotted for each.
A list of equipment, materials, and supplies
to be used in the module. Trainers will have to prepare their
own newsprint when needed, but will be provided with acetate copies
of transparencies.
A list of materials to be included in the Participant's
Manual.
Room requirements (if different from general
setup described in the first module).
Important preparation that trainers and facilitators
should attend to before delivering the training (if any).
A list of resources, especially readings, that
trainers might use for reference purposes (if any).
A two-column trainer outline describing the
content to be presented and the training methods to be used.
The following items are intended to assist trainers
in using the outline most effectively:
The content to be addressed in the module
will need some elaboration, clarification, or illustration.
Trainers
are expected to use information from the reference sheets included
in the manual and from their own and participants' knowledge and
experience to provide such elaboration. Trainers should be prepared
to adapt materials or methods to the culture of the participants
and to add humor, anecdotes, and the like to enliven presentations
as appropriate.
Although complete sentences or paragraphs
are used to make certain that complete thoughts are conveyed in
the written outline, the sentences are not intended to be read
to participants. They should be paraphrased or stated in the
trainer's own words.
For large and small group exercises, trainers
will find instruction for how to introduce, conduct, and process
the exercise to achieve the stated learning objectives of the
module. It is expected that trainers will state the purpose of
the exercise to participants and relate it appropriately to what
has been done so far in the module. Trainers should use the processing
questions as a guide, drawing from their own observations and
understanding of group dynamics to tailor the questions appropriately
for the particular group of participants while keeping the learning
objectives in mind.
Trainer notes included in the outline offer
additional instruction or provide options for trainers in conducting
the activity.
As a general rule, transparencies should be
the primary mode of presenting visuals in large group sessions,
as newsprint will be too small to be seen by everyone. Similarly,
trainers are expected to use microphones when the number of participants
is over forty.
Prepared newsprint used in small group sessions
should be done in large print and dark colors to be easily readable
to everyone in the group.
When written materials are used in exercises
(such as case study materials), trainers should have someone
read the material aloud to participants (in the total group or
in smaller break-out groups) to facilitate everyone's understanding.
Because people learn at different rates, and the
level of knowledge and expertise will vary in different groups,
it may be occasionally difficult to adhere to the times allotted
for each training activity. Trainers should use the time frames
included in the curriculum as a guide and try to follow them as
closely as possible to maintain the integrity of the overall training
design, but it is anticipated that occasional modifications will
be needed to meet the particular needs of the participants. The
learning objectives, in addition to trainer observations of participants'
needs should be used to determine how modifications are made.
This workshop is intended to be experiential and
interactive. Lectures are typically followed by group exercises
that allow participants to discover and/or practice new ideas
and concepts. Trainers should strive for a good balance by keeping
lectures short, giving participants the chance to raise questions
and/or comments, and taking adequate time to conduct and process
the exercises to draw the learnings from participants.
In some cases, trainers can deliver key content points
in less time than allotted for a lecture, then reinforce or elaborate
upon them during the processing of the exercise. This depends
on the trainer being thoroughly knowledgeable of the content and
the learning objectives and being able to take advantage of opportunities
to make a point or bring in a new concept.
Most refreshment breaks are scheduled between modules;
a few are incorporated into a module. All scheduled breaks should
be taken to maintain participant interest and energy; their exact
timing, however, should be guided by the needs of the group.
Activities should be completed before a break is called, although
a stretch break should be taken if discomfort or fatigue is interfering
with interest and concentration.
The participant manual includes copies of the transparencies
and reference sheets used during training. (Handouts are distributed
separately when they are needed.) Trainers should review the
manual with participants, walking them through what is included
and how it is organized, at the start of the workshop and refer
to it throughout the workshop.
Trainers should be sure that cultural awareness and
sensitivity are integrated throughout the workshop and that participants
are continually reminded of the importance of understanding concepts
of the workshop within a cultural context. The emphasis should
be on discovering, respecting, and working with the norms, beliefs,
and preferences of ethnic, racial, cultural, gender, religious,
or other groups, defined by representatives of these groups within
their communities.
Stereotypical statements should be avoided. If generalizations
are used, they should be clearly labeled as such and modified
with terms such as "many" or "tend to." The
role of institutional and societal racism, sexism, ageism, and
other such "isms" should be acknowledged as these pertain
to problems associated with or underlying ATOD problem prevention.
It is important for trainers to constantly keep in
mind the cultural context in which the information is being presented,
and to recognize that some of the theories and skills covered
in this curriculum may need to be modified to apply to different
cultures. As a part of the preparation process, trainers need
to think through the cultural variables that influence the concepts
they are presenting, as well as the links to prevention.
