Training Program

The National Native American AIDS Prevention Center (NNAAPC) is proud to be able to bring structured, skills-building trainings to Native communities, Native-serving organizations, and health departments. The trainings are designed to be culturally relevant, incorporate adult learning techniques, and achieve established learning objectives. Our current training repertoire includes training programs that help to strengthen prevention skills, program planning, organizational development, and cultural competency.

Available Trainings

Addressing Two Spirits in the American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Communities

Length: 2 days
Audience: This course targets any individual, Native or non-Native, that wishes to learn more about Two Spirit identity. It is designed for persons who are responsible for directly providing prevention services to American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian communities and individuals, and primarily focuses on front-line providers (especially prevention counselors and testers, but may also be appropriate for those community members, program/contract monitors, and health department staff that work regularly with Native communities.
Description: This multi-module curriculum will allow participants a holistic opportunity to examine many aspects of Two Spirit issues in Native Country, including stigma, misinformation, and misunderstanding of the identity. The goal is to mobilize community members to address the challenges and barriers in this sub-population, and to engage key community members in local prevention efforts in reducing the number of HIV infections and related diseases. Hopefully, this training will help those who face similar dilemmas, empower our allies to become proactive in addressing homophobia in our communities and empower Two-Spirit people to stand tall.

Board Development

Length: 1 day (or 2 half days)
Audience: This course is targeted to elected or appointed directors of a legal governing board for agencies that provide health care services to American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian communities and individuals. This training is also invaluable for appropriate staff in leadership positions. For this training to be effective it is mandatory that there be a board quorum (quorum number as defined by the organization’s by-laws) to allow official actions to be taken during the training.
Description: This innovative training examines concepts of organizational leadership and responsibility from a Native worldview. This includes exploring the legal duties of a board, obligations and expectations of board members, and the features of board organization and documentation
Note: This training requires advanced preparation on the part of the board and organizational leadership.

Building a CTRS Program for Native Communities

Length: 2 days
Audience: This training is for fledgling programs that are just beginning to establish a CTR program. This includes tribal, IHS, and urban clinics and CBOs, and staff serving in various positions – managers, directors, development staff, and others interested.
Description: This course provides guidelines for organizations and staff interested in establishing culturally informed CTR programs in the Native American community. There are various guidelines that provide the technical concepts and skills involved in counseling, testing and referrals. Some of these concepts and skills will be referred to in the training, however, the 2 day training content focuses on the programmatic and logistical considerations for starting a CTR program for American Indian/Alaska Native communities.

HIV Prevention Counseling for Native Communities

Length: 2 days
Audience: This course targets persons who are responsible for providing health care services to American Indian/Alaska Native communities and individuals. It primarily focuses on front-line providers, including physicians, nurses, counselors and those whose roles have direct influence on the services provided to these populations.
Description: The primary goal of this training is to increase service providers’ self-efficacy and skill level to deliver culturally relevant HIV prevention counseling, testing, referral services (CTRS) to American Indian, Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities. Counseling should always remain in a cultural context, and this course integrates basic counseling concepts and skills with cultural strengths to create a holistic sense of change.

Preparing for the Harvest: Grant Writing Skills Training

Length: 2 days
Audience: This course is targets persons who are responsible for organizational development fundraising, grant writing, proposal development – including executive leadership, development directors, program managers, and boards of directors, and any other appropriate key staff or consultants.
Description: This training is designed to introduce participants to the basic concepts of grant writing, including locating funding sources, sketching the components of a grant proposal, incorporating cultural and community elements into program planning, logic modeling, and preparing case statements. Participants will also have the opportunity to use CDC’s Compendium of HIV/AIDS related Evidence Based Practices to review and select Diffusion of Evidence Based Interventions (DEBI) models.

Safety Counts for Native Communities

Length: 2 days
Audience: This training is designed for program managers, agency leadership, volunteers, community members and front line staff who are interested in implementing a structured, evidence-based intervention to support risk reduction among their local Native, substance using population.
Description: This is a training of facilitators (TOF) for the Native adaptation of SAFETY COUNTS intervention. SAFETY COUNTS for Native Communities is an intervention designed to assist active Native drug users in reducing their risk around HIV and viral hepatitis. It is designed to work with active drug users who have used non-prescribed drugs in the last 90 days and are not currently in any drug treatment programs. This training will walk participants through the actual activities of the intervention and explore implementation at the agency level. Participants will walk away from this training with the resources, skills, and information to begin to implement SAFETY COUNTS for Native Communities in their own community.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Gay Culture, MSM & Cultural Competency

Length: 2 days
Audience: This course targets persons who are responsible for providing services to gay men/men who have sex with men. It primarily focuses on front-line providers, but may also be appropriate for those community members, program/contract monitors, and health department staff that work regularly with these high risk populations.
Description: The training explores some of the roots of gay identity and how those roots are expressed in a gay contemporary culture. This training will also explore how gay culture supports or hinders HIV prevention efforts, and how providers who work with gay or MSM communities might make programmatic adjustments to better address homophobia, heterosexism, and stigma to better serve these at-risk populations.
Note: This training is not Native-specific

Working with Native Communities

Length: 2 days (with flexibility to be shortened to 1 day)
Audience: This course targets non-Native persons who are responsible for providing services to American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian communities and individuals. It primarily focuses on front-line providers (including physicians, nurses, counselors and those whose roles have direct influence on the services provided to these population), but may also be appropriate for those community members, program/contract monitors, and health department staff that work regularly with Native communities.
Description: This training will help Native and non-Native serving agencies and staff to better understand how to work with and for Native community members to improve service delivery to those clients and promote culturally respectful and mutually beneficially professional relationships. This training will explore important cultural and historical components such as historical trauma, socioeconomic disparities, and communication that have created unique healthcare needs, and will pave the way for cultural competency.

You Shoot! You Score! Agency Preparedness to Implement an Evidence-Based Intervention

Length: 2 days
Audience: This course is targeted for persons who are responsible for providing HIV prevention services to American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities and individuals. Its intended audience is primarily executive directors and/or program directors. The concepts, resources and skills taught in this course are intended for those individuals within an agency that are responsible for establishing or expanding HIV prevention programming as it relates to the inclusion of behavioral interventions.
Description: This course provides guidelines for organizations and staff interested in establishing or enhancing culturally-informed HIV prevention programs utilizing those evidence-based interventions (EBI’s) laid out in the Diffusion of Effective Behavioral Interventions (DEBI) project. This manual is for programs that are just beginning and established programs both of which wish to improve the effectiveness of their HIV prevention efforts by supporting structured programs that promote lasting behavioral change.

Youth Media Training

Length: 20 total hours (delivered across a number of weeks as part of individual group trainings)
Audience: American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian youth ages 14-19 who are interested in becoming HIV prevention peer leaders in the community through the use of innovative social marketing and media techniques.
Description: The Native Youth HIV Prevention Media Project (YMP) is an 18-session curriculum designed to provide HIV prevention education, media literacy, media production skills, and leadership development to Native youth.
Note: This training is part of a community-based, youth-led, prevention intervention, not just a skills-based media training. Any agency seeking this training needs to understand that they are committed to working with their youth to implement this program.

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NNAAPC has become known for its ability to create effective trainings that are culturally-relevant, and tailored to meet the needs of an organization or department. So if you have a specific training need or are interested in any of the above training topics, please contact Vicki Peterson, Regional Training Coordinator, at vpeterson@nnaapc.org or 720.382.2244 x 302.

Some of the trainings can be offered at no cost and on-site, whereas others may require financial assistance to support training logistics and travel. These details can be discussed once a training need has been identified.