Supplemental Resources:

• Tackling America’s Opioid Epidemic from the Ground Up (Urban Trends Newsletter Vol. 25 No. 1)
• Effectively Engaging Men and Fathers to Support the Health and Wellness of Their Families (Urban Trends Newsletter Vol. 25 No. 2)
• Community Engagement 101 (Urban Trends Newsletter Vol. 26 No.1)

Presented by: Ivan Juzang, MBA, Founder and President of MEE Productions Inc.

Description:

This Community Engagement Training will provide a deeper understanding of the importance of community mobilization and how community engagement strategies create wins for both the community and your organization. That “win-win” is what leads to stronger, more vibrant and resilient communities.

Learning Objectives:

Many agencies and organizations are struggling to engage members of affected communities. Participants in this Community Engagement Training will:

• Understand how to adapt the Strategic Prevention Framework to engage communities (particularly with oral-based cultures) who have been mistreated by the systems and institutions that are supposed to serve and assist them.
• Learn why having authentic, on-the-ground community engagement in a public health or mental health professional’s “toolbox” counters a lack of trust in mainstream institutions, even though this approach is often ignored because it is perceived as “too hard” to pull off.
• Learn why using a network of community partners as a message-delivery channel can be both more culturally-relevant and cost-effective than mainstream, traditional media.
• Learn how to effectively engage and mobilize members of the community for community-wide dialogue by involving numerous access touchpoints.
• Understand why a combination of digital outreach (high-tech) and on-the-ground, community-based encounters (high-touch) community-based strategies increases both impact and effectiveness of community-engagement efforts for hard-to-reach audiences.
• Receive an overview of the “how” through culturally-relevant community outreach and mobilization strategies and tactics.

About the Presenter

Ivan Juzang, MBA, Founder and President of MEE Productions Inc.

Ivan Juzang, MBA, Founder and President of MEE Productions Inc., is a leading expert in health communications and social marketing. He has over 25 years of first-hand experience working on health disparities and public health issues affecting low income, underserved and devalued communities across America. Mr. Juzang’s work focuses on how service providers, community-based organizations and the public health community can present trauma-informed and culturally-relevant health information in such a way that lifestyle changes are sustainable in the context of an economically-challenged and stressed-out life.

MEE specializes in community-centered approaches that acknowledge the social determinants of health, honor personal assets and resiliency, infuse protective factors and embrace trauma-informed strategies. MEE has been engaged in substance abuse prevention work since 1991 in low-income urban communities across the country. Its specific opioid misuse work has been conducted in urban, suburban and rural communities over the last five years, in places that include Philadelphia, Baltimore and New Orleans, with Prevention Coalitions across Ohio and statewide agencies in Louisiana.

Mr. Juzang was a member of the Advisory Committee on Public Issues for The Ad Council and a current board member of Power to Decide (formerly the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy). From 2003-2009, Mr. Juzang was a member of The Office of National Drug Control and Policy's Behavior Change Expert Panel. Mr. Juzang received his BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University, and his MBA from The Wharton School of Business.