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Team Awareness is a team-based training program developed to increase the awareness of behavioral health as a group concern rather than an individual burden. The training seeks to decrease tolerance and enabling of problem behaviors, enhance group responsiveness to problems, improve attitudes toward policy, and increase help seeking and peer referral to the EAP, counseling or other resources. The original objectives of this worksite prevention training program were to examine and address the role that work group culture and social dynamics play in enabling substance use and how use by any member of the work group can negatively impact every other member. The training addresses five areas of workplace culture associated with substance use and other behavioral health concerns: occupational subcultures, drinking climates, tolerance/enabling, group cohesion, and the social context of policy.

The team-oriented awareness training is an 8-hour program, administered across two (4-hour) sessions, two weeks apart. Six to eight weeks prior to training delivery, interviews with EAP representatives and key personnel in human resources are conducted, copies of all relevant documents are obtained (policies, EAP promotional materials, and previous training materials), and focus groups are conducted. Interviews and focus groups help customize training. The training is best suited for nine to fifteen employees to allow for group discussion. The five training components are: (1) relevance, which seeks to increase understanding of the importance of substance abuse prevention; (2) team ownership of policy, which explains that policy is most effective when seen as a useful tool for enhancing safety; (3) understanding stress, in which employees self-assess their coping style, identify stressors, and review methods for coping; (4) understanding tolerance, which teaches how tolerance can become a risk factor; and (5) support and encourage help, which encourages help-seeking and help-giving behavior. A condensed 4-hour version of Team Awareness is also available with materials and protocols in Spanish.

A randomized control trial reported that group privacy regulation, EAP trust, help seeking, and peer encouragement increased for the experimental group participants while the control group showed no change. Stigma of substance users decreased only for the experimental group. A randomized field experiment that assessed the team-oriented training reported that experimental group supervisors were more likely to improve on several dimensions of responsiveness than were control group supervisors. Another study determined that the need for this team-oriented approach is greater among employees who experience psychosocial risks such as workplace drinking climates, social alienation, and policies that emphasize deterrence (drug testing) over educational prevention.

HELPFUL LINKS (Three Links-Web Posters, Workplace Project at TCU, CSAP Model Programs)

WEB POSTER PRESENTATIONS
(http://www.ibr.tcu.edu/posters/posters.html#Workplace)View Three PowerPoint Posters showing the background and development of TEAM AWARENESS.

THE WORKPLACE PROJECT AT TCU
The program was developed as part of The Workplace Project at the Institute of Behavioral Research at Texas Christian University.( http://www.ibr.tcu.edu/projects/workplac/workplac.html)

SAMHSA MODEL PROGRAMS
SAMHSA (SUBSTANCE ABUSE MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES ADMINISTRATION)
Find out more about SAMHSA MODEL Programs (http://www.samhsa.gov/centers/csap/modelprograms/)