Handle With Care: Oklahoma

Peer Support Groups Training

Training Resources

Interagency Trainings

These ongoing complementing trauma-informed and protective frameworks increase collaboration and move the needle faster when implemented together at the local level.

Upcoming Interagency Trainings

Getting Ahead Facilitator Training

 

Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin’-By World certified facilitator training is the prerequisite for the Getting Ahead While Getting Out and Getting Ahead in the Workplace certified facilitator trainings.

Become a certified Getting Ahead facilitator and help under-resourced individuals to:

  • Take charge of their lives
  • Complete a self-assessment of their own resources and make plans to build them
  • Develop a series of mental models to examine their own lives and create new future stories
  • Help stabilize their lives
  • Investigate the impact that poverty has had on themselves and their community
  • Use this information to build resources for a better life and community

HWC Oklahoma provides virtual Train the Trainer sessions quarterly. Backbone support for HWC Oklahoma is provided by Public Health Institute of Oklahoma. 

HWC OK Train the Trainer schedule

Bridges out of Poverty 

Reducing the social costs of poverty, strengthening the workforce, and building a more prosperous and sustainable community are goals on which most communities agree. aha! Process’s Bridges Out of Poverty community support program provides a family of concepts, workshops, and products to help employers, community organizations, social service agencies, and individuals address and reduce poverty in a comprehensive way. Bridges brings people from all sectors and economic classes together to improve job retention rates, build resources, improve outcomes, and support those who are moving out of poverty.

Bridges out of Poverty information

Vision for Supporting Families and the CoP in OK:
We envision a state where families and communities are equipped to keep people with disabilities supported, empowered, and on a journey towards a good life.

Additional Information

Botvin LST Application- Now Open

 The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (ODMHSAS) Prevention Division coordinates school-based prevention services. To increase the number of Oklahoma youth reached by the classroom-based, evidence-based program, Botvin LifeSkills Training (LST), to reduce behavioral health problems.

Selected school sites will be provided training and program curriculum to implement Botvin LST at no cost to the school.

Botvin LST Interest Application Form- only one application per school

For more information on the Botvin LST program contact: Katelyn Wilson, Prevention Programs Specialist, at Katelyn.Wilson@odmhsas.org.

The Strengthening Families Program (SFP) is an evidence-based family skills training program for high-risk and general population families that is recognized both nationally and internationally. Parents and youth attend weekly SFP skills classes together, learning parenting skills and youth life and refusal skills. They have separate class training for parents and youth the first hour, followed by a joint family practice session the second hour.

More Information

The Celebrating Families!™ curriculum is an evidence based cognitive behavioural, support group model written for families in which one or both parents have a serious problem with alcohol or other drugs and in which there is a high risk for domestic violence, child abuse, or neglect. Celebrating Families!™ works with every member of the family, from ages 3 through adult, to strengthen recovery from alcohol and/or other drugs, break the cycle of addiction and increase successful family reunification. Celebrating Families!™ fosters the development of safe, healthy, fulfilled, and addiction-free individuals and families by increasing resiliency factors and decreasing risk factors while incorporating addiction recovery concepts with healthy family living skills.

More Information

Peer Support Group Monthly Meetings

In collaboration with the Public Health Institute of Oklahoma, Oklahoma Health Care Authority, Muskogee Bridges and the Oklahoma Parent Partnership Learning Community (OK PPLC), we are promoting this monthly planning call to increase public-private interagency collaboration around peer support groups.

Action Team: Facilitators of Peer Support Groups
Please join us for monthly statewide planning calls for facilitators of peer support groups and agency leaders implementing or interested in peer support groups. All are welcome. Feel free to invite interested colleagues. See below goals.

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMrcOGorjojGNyvNKnoVh4f0rw3rBqo3nef

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

2nd Wednesdays of the month; 10:30 – 11:30am

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Proposed Meeting Goals:

  • strengthen family and community well-being by addressing socio-ecological drivers of health with peer support groups/life skills classes, especially in zip codes with high density “rising-risk” Medicaid/SoonerCare members;
  • encourage communities to implement peer support groups with trained facilitators (frontline family engagement specialists, case managers, health navigators, family advocates, community health workers, behavioral health aides, parents as teachers, family support providers, peer recovery support specialists, counselors, etc.);
  • discuss sample partnership agreements to reduce shared costs of peer support groups;
  • discuss shared data and measurement tools (sample tools);
  • support new and experienced facilitators by sharing best practices together, create a shared google drive, and provide opportunities for collaboration and resources

What is a peer support group?

1) Reduces Sources of Stress/Removes Barriers for Participation;
 provide weekly family meal,child care, stipend, and transportation if needed

2) Supports Responsive Relationships and Environments;
8–12people meet weekly for 18 weeks to build authentic relationships that last beyond graduation

3)Strengthens Core Life Skills;
Over 4-5months, two trained facilitators use a curriculum thatbuilds executive functioning skills in 11 domains

Sponsored support/technical assistance will be provided by:

  • Jennifer Colbert, Oklahoma Health Care Authority
  • Treasure McKenzie, Muskogee Bridges 
  • Adrienne Elder, MPH, Director of Interagency Special Projects, EB Consulting
  • Spotlight community facilitators, peer support group graduates, special guests and national speakers!

Qualities of a Facilitator:

  • Facilitators agree on the philosophy, concepts and underlying principles that allow flexibility, yet consistency in how the program information is presented.
  • A facilitator investigates his/her own life while program participants investigate theirs.
  • Facilitators are both open-minded and compassionate.
  • Facilitators have a sincere desire to see others succeed.
  • Facilitators ask thought-provoking questions, but do not supply any answers.
  • Facilitators do not disrupt the learning experience of others. 
  • Facilitators recognize the value of the gifts, talents, knowledge, insights and leadership that people experiencing adversity can offer.
  • Facilitators are the biggest advocates for graduates.