Purpose

To support Superfund site cleanups by providing EPA Community Involvement Coordinators (CIC) and other EPA and EPA-affiliated staff with the necessary skills, techniques, and practices to engage the community in the Superfund process.  The Community Involvement University (CIU) offers a variety of courses each year at regional offices and at national conferences or training events.

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 manages CIU; she can be reached at 703-603-9246 or sanchez.yolanda@epa.gov. 

Course List

CIU offers one- to three-day 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.  Detailed course information can be found at http://www.trainex.org/catalog/bypartner_view.cfm?partner=CIU. CIU offers Basic and Advanced courses.

Basic Courses:

• Building Trust and Resolving Differences: Equip participants with communication tools to work more effectively in stressful situations.
• 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.
• Facilitation Training (Basic):  Learn how to serve as effective facilitators in meeting situations. 
• IAP2 Certificate Course Series in Public Participation: Learn to use IAP2’s “public participation spectrum” to determine and implement the appropriate level of public involvement for unique scenarios.
• Mastering Meetings: Equip participants with skills to design successful meetings.
• Media/Spokesperson Training (Basic) - Working with the News Media: Enhance participants’ ability to handle an interview professionally.
• Present Effectively with Style and Skill at Public Meetings - A Spokesperson Training: Gain skills and confidence to "stand up and deliver" effectively during public meetings.
• Public Participation for Technical Staff - How to Make Public Participation Work for You: Learn how to use public participation to improve site planning and key decision-making.
• Reader-Focused Writing (Basic) - Writing Made Easy, Reading Made Easy: Learn to use plain language and effective design techniques to create clear and usable documents.
• Risk and Decision Making: Provide overview of the principles, policies, and limitations of the chronic human health risk assessment process used by EPA.
• Risk Communication Training: Develop risk communication messages and determine effective methods and tools to convey these messages. 

Advanced Courses:

• 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.
• Communicating Effectively During Environmental Crisis: Provides an overview of the principles and techniques of risk communications with a focus on developing and delivering compelling messages.
• Emotion, Outrage, and Public Participation: Learn strategies and behaviors to enhance quality public participation outcomes, even when communities are emotional or outraged.
• Facilitation Training (Advanced): Enhance participants’ ability to serve as effective facilitators in any meeting situation. 
• Facilitation Training for Potentially Explosive Situations: Learn how to anticipate, manage, and successfully conclude situations and meetings that are "potentially explosive."
• Leadership - Managing Up, Down, and Sideways: Provide insights into how personal preferences influence leadership style and equip participants with tools to effectively motivate others.
• Media/Spokesperson Training (Advanced) - Know What to Say and How to Say it: Enhance participants’ ability to more effectively deliver messages, even under pressure. 
• Reader-Focused Writing (Advanced): Enhance participants’ writing and review skills so they can analyze, write, rewrite, and reorganize clear, reader-focused material for their constituents.
• Risk and 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.  

CIU offers these one- to three-day courses on a "demand" basis, as we receive requests from Regional CI Managers, CIU representatives, and other Superfund Program staff.  If you are interested in bringing a CIU course to your region, please contact your Regional CIU liaisons (you can find the current list in the CIU brochure linked below).   If you would like to have a CIU course presented at a national conference or other event, please contact Yolanda Sanchez at 703-603-9246 or sanchez.yolanda@epa.gov. 

You can also view the CIU Brochure (565KB/31pp/PDF), which was updated in September 2010.