Stigmas are negative social attitudes about perceived differences between people and groups. This can be based on a range of characteristics such as appearance, behavior, beliefs, social position, and background. Stigmas can cause debilitating shame, isolation, and exclusion from necessary medical care and other forms of support. Stigmas cause barriers to accessing and maintaining recovery and are difficult to dismantle.
Those of us who live with substance use and mental health challenges encounter stigmas on a daily basis. Those of us who provide mental health and substance use services and support may be stigmatized by colleagues and community members. Great effort is required to identify, address, mitigate, and reverse the impact of stigma. This is also central to developing meaningful recovery plans.
What stigmas do you or the communities with which you identify face and how do you survive them? When you see someone being stigmatized, how do you and your programs respond? These are some of the many questions we can help you address in this immersive, experience-based course on how and why stigmas are formed and what can be done to weaken and dismantle them in your selves, programs, agencies, and communities.
During this course, we will share our experiences of stigma, examine research and theories about stigma, and explore the psychological and social suffering stigmas cause. We will discuss ways to resist different forms of stigma and address individual and systemic factors. We will also examine case studies that include efforts to reduce the use of stigmatizing language, organize social movements that call out and fight against discrimination and oppression, and create community-wide shifts in knowledge and attitudes. Working with partners, participants will begin developing anti-stigma initiatives tailored to their organizations and communities.
Who should take this course:
- Peer workers and clinical professionals employed in clinical, non-profit, and peer-run and recovery community organizations
- Individuals working or volunteering in health, behavioral health, homeless, and human service programs
- Staff from any organizations where stigma is a potential issue, including programs related to education, law enforcement, criminal justice, and drug and mental health courts
- Community organizers, activists, and social justice advocates
- Students in social work, behavioral health, sociology, nursing, medicine
Course facts:
- Dates: February 17 and 18, 2022
- Time: 11:00 am-2:00 pm ET
- Subject: Identifying and Dismantling Stigma in Recovery Services
- Practice level: Beginner, intermediate, and advanced
- CE credit:
- ASWB: 6 hours
- NAADAC: 6 hours
- NBCC: 6 hours
- Course type: Live online
- Two-day live online webcast for 3 hours each day
- Covered topics: Stigma, recovery, substance use, mental health
Learning objectives:
- Describe subjective and shared beliefs, attitudes, actions, and structures that produce and sustain stigmas
- Observe how and why we and the communities in which we live and work are affected by stigma and stigmatizing beliefs and attitudes
- Identify root causes and multiple forms and levels of stigma
- Review research on the impact of stigma and efforts to mitigate or dismantle stigmas
- Identify frameworks for designing, implementing, and assessing anti-stigma initiatives
Meet the Instructors
Kevin McCarthy, MSW, is a person in long-term recovery, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and recovery advocate. He specializes in the treatment of clients with co-occurring disorders, focusing on challenges with housing and stigma. Kevin is a member of the boards of Heading Home Inc. and Massachusetts Organization for Addiction Recovery. He was a consultant for the Department of Youth Services and MORE Advertising for the Massachusetts State without Stigma campaign.
Steven Samra, MPA, has expertise and lived experience in substance use and mental health recovery, harm reduction approaches, promotion of lived experience as critical experiential knowledge, developing and leading peer advisory councils, peer leadership, cultural competence, criminal justice, and effective outreach and engagement for challenging populations. He serves in leadership capacities for multiple recovery, substance use, mental health, peer involvement, and homelessness focused initiatives.
Training Certificates
Participants may earn a Certificate of Course Completion* by:
- Attending all five, live webcasts (or watching the entire recording of each live session) and completing all required learning activities
- Scoring 80% or higher on each weekly quiz
- Scoring 80% agreement on results of final assignment
- Completing the course evaluation form and the certificate request form
Certificates of Completion are awarded to participants who have attended both live webcasts, completed all required learning activities, scored 80% or higher on all quizzes, completed the course evaluation form, and the certificate request form. 6 hours hours of continuing education credit will be awarded upon completion of this course. Certificates will be emailed directly to participants roughly two weeks after the completion of the final webcast.
Accommodations
If you need accommodations for disability, please contact C4’s Managing Director, Rachel Ehly, rehly@c4innovates.com.
Grievances
If you would like to report a complaint, please email Ken Kraybill, C4 trainer, kkraybill@c4innovates.com; or C4 Managing Director, Rachel Ehly, rehly@c4innovates.com.
In order to fully complete this course and receive a continuing education certificate from one of the following boards, you must pass each of the five weekly quizzes with an 80% or higher (you will have unlimited retests) along with the final evaluation. The required posttest questions will be at the end of each week's section and the required evaluation will be provided at the completion of the course. Upon successful completion of this course, you can request a certificate using the certificate request form posted with the evaluation and on your learning page. C4 Innovations will then review your course completion and email you a certificate within 2-3 weeks in PDF format. If you are social worker, you will need to write in your license number in the certificate request form for us to be able to include it in your certificate.
C4 Innovations, Provider #1457, is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved as ACE providers. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. C4 Innovations maintains responsibility for this course. ACE provider approval period: 10/17/2020 to 10/17/2023. Social workers completing this course receive 6 continuing education credits.
C4 Innovations has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6576. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. C4 Innovations is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
This course has been approved by C4 Innovations, as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for educational credits. NAADAC Provider #100990, C4 Innovations is responsible for all aspects of their programing.
