Connections Matter is a training designed to engage community members in building caring connections to:
- Improve resiliency,
- Prevent childhood trauma, and
- Understand how our interactions with others can support those who have experienced trauma.
Please note: The Training Hub includes both in-person and online professional trainings. During the time of COVID-19, we know the demand for virtual training has greatly increased, and many of our members are quickly adapting to get you the training you need. If you see a training you are interested in and it isn’t listed as virtual, please reach out directly to any of our members to find out what is possible!
Connections Matter is a training designed to engage community members in building caring connections to:
Far too often, masculine expectations lead those who identify as male to engage in harmful behaviors, including high risk sexual behaviors. Educators, youth workers, and other caring adults frequently see the negative impact of these expectations and struggle to reach male identified folks who are unwilling to seek out and utilize health care services and other support networks. In this workshop, participants will explore and attempt to understand harmful masculine expectations and will leave with strategies for challenging and countering these expectations with the goal of promoting more positive, uplifting expressions of masculinity. Registration link here.
Professionals in adolescent health agree - we want young people to practice abstinence. However, even the word abstinence is a loaded term, and many abstinence messages conveyed to youth have a judgmental element that disparages youth who do have sex. In this interactive workshop, participants will examine their personal values about abstinence, identify both positive and negative abstinence messages conveyed to youth, and practice turning negative abstinence messages into positive sexual health messages for young people.
Puberty - a time of great, and sometimes daunting, change for both young people and the adults in their lives. This interactive, full-day training will provide educators, school nurses, youth-serving professionals, and other caring adults with skills and strategies for teaching pubescent youth about their changing bodies, emotional growth, and navigating the path to adulthood in a way that is inclusive of students of all genders and sexual identities. Through a social-emotional learning lens, participants will have an opportunity to engage in lessons and activities that will build their own skills to teach anatomy, menstruation, hygiene, cultivating empathy, and more. Registration link here.
Conducting a Community Needs Assessment - Participants will understand how to better assess the populations they serve, including examining cultural values and norms, in order to better select, adapt, and implement evidence-based adolescent pregnancy, HIV/STI prevention programs.
CQI/Program Sustainability - Participants learn how to conduct Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) to strengthen their programs and plan for program sustainability. Participants will describe how CQI leads to program sustainability and develop a program sustainability action plan.
Developing a Logic Model - Participants will understand how to develop logic models to design and use programs to prevent adolescent pregnancy and HIV/STI. Participants apply the concepts of risk and protective factors to build their own logic models.
Getting to Outcomes: A Step-by-Step Process to Prevent Adolescent Pregnancy - Participants are guided through the Getting to Outcomes (GTO) framework, a process that helps practitioners use an evidence-based approach to plan, implement, evaluate, and improve programs. GTO connects these essential ingredients for effective prevention programs.
How Effective is My Work? - Evaluating Sexual Health Programs - Participants will understand the basics of process and outcome evaluation, learn about basic evaluation instruments, and leave with a plan to implement and analyze these tools in their settings.
Recipe for Success: Insight into Program Fidelity and Adaptation - Participants will learn about practical tools and resources to guide them in maintaining fidelity to core components of evidence-based interventions and make effective adaptations, and will come to understand why funders and decision-makers stress fidelity.
Self-care is more than just bubble baths and facials; it is vital to our mental health and can include everyday activities, like walking and breathing. School staff can model healthy self-care and pass it along to their students. We will discuss what self-care can look like in your classroom both virtually and in-person.