Workforce Capacity

Workforce training capacity refers to an organization’s ability to educate health agency staff on ways to prevent, identify, treat, and mitigate harms for ACEs, suicide, and overdose. State health agencies can increase capacity by training health agency staff in evidence-based prevention strategies; cross-training health agency staff on the intersection of ACEs, suicide, and overdose; supporting the identification and reduction of stigma; and educating health agency staff about trauma-informed care and health equity. Using the Suicide, Overdose, and Adverse Childhood Experiences Prevention Capacity Assessment Tool (SPACECAT) can assist your agency with determining your state’s level of capacity to expand its workforce training capacity. Below is a list of beginner, intermediate, and advanced actions your organization can take based on your SPACECAT results.

Beginner Action Ideas

• Identify internal training gaps and provide focus groups with staff to determine what would be most valuable for them.
• Identify staff who work on ACEs, suicide, and overdose prevention across the health agency and partnering agencies to support collaborative work and reduce capacity concerns.
• Determine whether your agency provides training on trauma-informed care for health agency staff.
• Ascertain the level of knowledge health agency staff currently has around health equity.
• Create a self-assessment for staff to identify strengths and gaps in knowledge.

Intermediate Action Ideas

• Look into resources and trainings that focus on evidence-based prevention strategies and how they could be implemented to close current gaps in knowledge (e.g., SAMHSA’s finding evidence-based programs and practices).
• Connect colleagues from across programmatic areas and partnering agencies who work on issues related to ACEs, suicide, and overdose prevention. Advocate for staff to join peer groups (e.g., Safe States Alliance) to connect them with others in the field.
• Compile a list of internal resources staff can engage with to better support them when they are experiencing anything from lack of motivation or burnout to a crisis that needs more immediate attention.
• Research available resources and trainings on trauma-informed care and determine which training would be suitable for staff in your health agency. If trauma-informed care training already exists, determine which resources would best supplement the training already in place (e.g., NCTSN’s trauma-informed organizational assessment).
• Identify internal and external resources on health equity and its impact on health outcomes, including ACEs, suicide, and overdose (e.g., NACCHO’s roots of health inequity).

Advanced Action Ideas

• Book and conduct additional training on evidence-based prevention strategies for health agency staff.
• Train health agency staff on the intersection of ACEs, suicide, and overdose and create a plan for future collaboration across programmatic areas and partnering agencies.
• Provide wellness and stigma reduction workshops that focus on self-care for staff, employee wellness topics (e.g., Employee Assistance Program), and reduction of stigma around addressing mental health concerns.
• Set up and implement trauma-informed care training for health agency staff. Ensure that it adds to and supplements any trainings already in place.
• Conduct a health equity workshop with health agency staff where internal and external resources on health equity’s impact on health outcomes pertaining to ACEs, suicide, and overdose are shared and discussed.

Resources

• A Practical Guide to Cross-Functional Work | The Ready
• Advancing Trauma-Informed Care | Center for Health Care Strategies
• Child Traumatic Stress: What Every Policymaker Should Know | NCTSN
• Eliminating Stigma Faced by Peer Support Staff | RIC
• Finding Evidence-based Programs and Practices | SAMHSA
• Joy in Work | IHI
• Principles of Prevention Training | CDC
• Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey 2021 Findings | de Beaumont | ASTHO
• Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey National Dashboards | de Beaumont | ASTHO
• Roots of Health Inequity: A Web-Based Course for the Public Health Workforce | NACCHO
• Trauma-Informed Organizational Assessment | NCTSN

Health Equity Questions to Consider

• What strategies does your agency implement to onboard and retain staff who recognize and implement a health equity lens?
  
  • Check out the virtual roundtable, “Workplace Environment Matters: Strategies to Support & Retain Behavioral Health Staff Providing Services to Diverse Ethnic and Racial Populations.”
• Does your agency partake in regular training or educational focus groups to refine knowledge of and prioritize a health equity approach? 
  • Check out CDC’s web page, “Building Workforce Capacity: Recruit, Train, Forecast.”
  • Review CDC’s training and education resources for workforce.
• Does your agency prioritize paying livable wages and providing supportive benefits to your staff as a method of ensuring long-term, successful employees?
  
  • Review the article, “Making a Living in Governmental Public Health: Variation in Earnings by Employee Characteristics and Work Setting.”
• Does your agency regularly assess the level of health equity knowledge present within your workforce?
  
  • See this health equity assessment tip sheet to learn about conducting a health equity assessment within your agency.
• Does your jurisdiction share or highlight health equity initiatives to raise awareness and continue their success?
  
  • See the health equity initiatives and projects highlighted by the Minnesota Department of Health.