Purpose

To train community involvement coordinators (CIC) and other EPA and EPA-affiliated staff on the practice of engaging the community in the Superfund process by offering or marketing workshops and training courses.

Logistics

The CIU is managed by the Community Involvement and Program Initiatives Branch (CIPIB) in the Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation (OSRTI).  Yolanda Sanchez is the new CIU lead for CIPIB.  She can be reached at: 703-603-9246 or sanchez.yolanda@epa.gov. 

Course List

CIU offers courses on a "demand" basis, as we receive requests from Regional CI Managers, CIU representatives, and other Superfund Program staff.  In the next year, CIU will be evaluating its current course curriculum.  Currently, CIU offers:

• Advanced Facilitation Training:  Further enhance participants’ ability to serve as effective facilitators in meeting situations. 
• Advanced Reader-Focused Writing: Enhance participants’ writing and review skills so they can analyze, write, rewrite, and reorganize clear, reader-focused material for their constituents.
• Basic Facilitation Training: Enhance participants’ facilitation skills.
• Building Trust and Resolving Differences: Equip participants with communication tools to work more effectively in stressful situations.
• Community Culture and the Environment: Improve participants’ understanding of the communities they work with by using a toolbox for understanding the social dynamics involved in community-based efforts.
• Community Involvement - Tools and Techniques: Equip participants with tools and techniques to plan effective outreach and involvement strategies at Superfund sites.
• Cross-Cultural Effectiveness: Improve participants’ awareness of and improve their communication with different cultures.
• Dealing with Hostile Meetings and Difficult Situations: Enhance participants’ ability to, as well as equip participants with techniques to, assess difficult situations and understand the role of power in these situations.
• Effects and Management of Superfund Stress: Equip participants with knowledge to understand how they respond to stressful situations, assess their own personal stress levels, and develop a personal stress management plan.
• Know What to Say and How to Say It - An Advanced Media/Spokesperson Workshop: Further enhance participants’ ability to explain their work and communicate tough issues through the media.
• Mastering Meetings: Equip participants with skills to design successful meetings.
• Public Involvement – How to Communicate, Listen, and Work with our Public: Provide insights and strategies for establishing trusting working relationships with communities and other interest groups.
• Reader-Focused Writing – Writing Made Easy, Reading Made Easy: Enhance participants’ writing skills.
• Risk Communication Workshop: Develop risk communication messages and determine effective methods and tools to convey these messages.
• Working with the News Media: Enhance participants’ ability to handle an interview professionally.
• Attitude, Function, and Style: Provide insights into how personal preferences influence leadership style and equip participants with tools to effectively motivate others.

You can also view the CIU Brochure (349KB/18pp/PDF) which is currently being updated.