Propose or Request a Training
At the UNC Charlotte Violence Prevention Center (VPC), we are dedicated to fostering a culture of learning and growth. We offer comprehensive training to students, staff, faculty, health practitioners, community members, and organizations—both governmental and non-governmental. Whether you’re an expert eager to share your knowledge or someone looking to enhance your skills, we have opportunities tailored just for you.
Propose a Training
Are you passionate about a topic that aligns with our mission? We invite you to propose a training session to be delivered as part of our VPC Training Series. This is your chance to contribute to our community’s education by sharing your expertise. We welcome proposals on a wide range of topics, including:
- Trauma-Informed Care
- Suicide Prevention
- Social Determinants of Health
- Youth Empowerment and Advocacy
- Community-based Participatory Research
- Policy and Advocacy
- Quantitative or Qualitative Research Methods
- Interdisciplinary and Innovative Approaches (e.g., AI, technology)
To submit your proposal, simply download and email the completed form below to Dr. Rob Cramer, Associate Director of Education & Training. Our team will review your request and get in touch with you about next steps.
REQUEST a training
Looking for our VPC Faculty to provide training to your organization or community? We’re here to help. Our experts can deliver high-impact training. Example areas include, but are not limited to:
- Addressing Bullying in Schools
- Advanced Quantitative Analytics
- Bystander Intervention Techniques
- Healthy Relationship Education
- Mental Health
- Military Health
- Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods
- Suicide Prevention
- Supporting Survivors of Sexual Assault
- Trauma-Informed Care
- Understanding and Preventing Domestic Violence
- Working with Incarcerated Populations
Simply let us know what you’re interested in by completing the form below, and we’ll work with you to schedule a training that meets your goals.
Example VPC faculty trainings
College Campus Suicide Prevention
Operating on the belief that campus suicide prevention and mental health promotion is everyone’s business, the College Campus Suicide Prevention training program applies the Social-Ecological Model of Suicide Prevention (Cramer & Kapusta, 2017) to a university setting. The training addresses the following subjects:
- Guidelines and a case illustration (Cramer et al., 2022) of designing a comprehensive, social-ecologically based campus suicide prevention program
- Sample programs and interventions across levels of the social-ecological model
- Considerations for high-risk student groups
- Review of campus policies and strategic planning
The training concludes with a discussion of lessons learned and beginning efforts to develop a plan for any local campus community.
Core Competency Model (CCM) Suicide Prevention Training
The CCM (Cramer et al., 2013, 2023) provides training for mental health providers in basic-to-intermediate skills. Based on a social-cognitive training approach, the CCM addresses 10 clinical care and clinician self-management skills:
- Managing your attitudes and reactions toward suicide-related topics
- Maintaining a collaborative, empathetic stance toward the client
- Assessing evidence-based, culturally-informed risk and protective factors
- Eliciting details of current plan and intent of suicidal ideation
- Developing a therapeutic and tailored risk formulation
- Enacting a collaborative evidence-based treatment plan
- Involving supportive other persons
- Documenting formulation, plan, and reasoning for clinical decisions
- Knowing the law concerning suicide
- Engaging in debriefing and self-care
Training includes psycho-educational, interactive scenarios, and resources for mental health providers. It is also accompanied by the Suicide Competency Assessment Form-Revised (Cramer et al., 2023), a self- and/or observer-rated tool for use in clinical supervision, self-reflective practices, and training evaluation. Training in these essential skills sets the provider up to move to advanced risk management and therapeutic interventions.
Core Competency Model-Corrections (CCM-C) Suicide Prevention Training
The CCM-C (Cramer, Kaniuka, & Peiper, 2022) program is an adapted version of the original Core Competency Model (CCM), tailored for considerations of carceral populations and settings. Adopting the Centers for Disease Control Self-Directed Violence (SDV) framework, the CCM-C program provides training in correctional suicide and self-injury prevention skills for mental health providers. The program covers the following essential skills:
- Managing your attitude and reactions toward self-directed violence
- Maintaining a collaborative, empathetic stance toward the client
- Knowing and eliciting evidence-based risk and protective factors
- Focusing on current plan and intent of self-directed violence
- Determining level of risk
- Developing and enacting a collaborative evidence-based treatment plan
- Notifying and involving other persons
- Documenting risk, plan, and reasoning for clinical decisions
- Knowing the law concerning self-directed violence
- Engaging in debriefing and self-care
CCM-C training provides psycho-educational content, clinical scenarios, and self-assessment resources. A core part of the training covers development and use of the Self-Injury Risk Assessment Protocol for Corrections (SIRAP-C; Cramer et al., 2022), a structured approach to assessing risk/protective factors, risk level, and intervention options.
Core Competency Model-Military (CCM-M) Suicide Prevention Training
The CCM-M tailors core competency model training to the unique needs and considerations of military active duty and veteran populations. Based on a social-cognitive training approach, the CCM addresses 10 clinical care and clinician self-management skills:
- Managing your attitudes and reactions toward suicide
- Maintaining a collaborative, empathic stance toward the client
- Eliciting evidence based risk and protective factors
- Focusing on current plan and intent of suicidal ideation
- Determining level of risk
- Developing and enacting a collaborative evidence-based treatment plan
- Notifying and involving other persons
- Documenting risk, plan, and reasoning for clinical decisions
- Knowing the law concerning suicide
- Engaging in debriefing and self-care
CCM-M training draws on the Veterans Affairs/Department of Defense (VA/DoD, 2019) suicide clinical practice guidelines to provide entry level suicide prevention skills for mental health providers. Using CCM training approaches (e.g., case scenarios), military-specific suicide prevention attitudes, policies, and treatments are also covered.
Health of LGBTQ+ Individuals
As the number of individuals identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and others (LGBTQ+) continues to grow, it becomes increasingly important to understand health trends and adopt best practices for supporting LGBTQ+ individuals. The health of LGBTQ+ individuals is influenced by factors such as access to supportive healthcare, societal stigma and discrimination, and community behaviors—including both health-promoting actions like information sharing and health-risk behaviors like substance use. This training highlights current health issues and strengths within LGBTQ+ communities and is informed by best practice guidelines (e.g., WPATH, APA, ACOG).
Topics addressed include:
- Health trends among LGBTQ+ youth
- Health trends among LGBTQ+ adults
- Best practices for care among sexual minoritized individuals (e.g. lesbian, bisexual, gay, queer)
- Best practices for care among gender minoritized individuals (e.g. trans, nonbinary)
Interprofessional Approaches to Suicide Prevention
This training program is appropriate for any professional (e.g., journalism, research, advocates, clinicians) involved in suicide prevention efforts. It is framed by both the Social-Ecological Model of Suicide Prevention (Cramer & Kapusta, 2017) and Interprofessional Education (World Health Organization, 2016) perspectives. The Interprofessional Approaches to Suicide Prevention training provides an overview of core public health suicide prevention and interprofessional learning competencies. Skills addressed in this training are:
Foundational Suicide Prevention:
- Using contemporary suicide prevention-related terminology
- Managing personal attitudes, reactions, and social norms concerning suicide
- Knowing evidence-based risk and protective factors, and theories of suicide
- Recognizing legal and ethical considerations concerning suicide
Clinical/Individual (Tertiary Prevention):
- Developing and maintaining a collaborative, empathic stand toward persons experiencing suicidality
- Conducting and documenting a clinical risk assessment
- Understanding mental health service approaches to suicide prevention
Social/Interpersonal & At-risk Group (Secondary Prevention):
- Enacting a collaborative evidence-based plan
- Comprehending social support approaches to suicide prevention
Community-Based (Primary Prevention & Postvention):
- Knowing public health approaches to suicide prevention
- Articulating community organizing and advocacy-based approaches to suicide prevention
- Adapting suicide prevention to special population needs (e.g., military, LGBTQ, adolescents)
- Framing suicide prevention within a strategic plan
Interprofessional Education:
- Ethical approach and respect for mutual contribution to provision of care
- Roles and responsibilities
- Interprofessional communication
- Teams and team work
- Ability to transfer interprofessional learning to the work setting
- Community engagement and centeredness
Training includes a variety of interactive exercises, psycho-educational content, and suicide prevention tools. Emphasis is placed on translation of skills to real-world settings; subject matter can be tailored to suit trainees’ needs.
Military Suicide Stigma: Concepts, Measurement, & Solutions
Stigmatizing beliefs about suicide can be focused on oneself or other persons. Such stigma exacerbates suicide risk and limits help-seeking, especially among military active duty service members. This training addresses military suicide stigma from a public health perspective in order to identify strategies to assess and reduce the problem. The Military Suicide Stigma training program covers:
- Definitions of self-stigma, public stigma, and military suicide stigma
- Stigma measurement tool uses and limitations
- Patterns and impacts of stigma in the military
- Options for stigma reduction interventions
Paper Chase: A Structured Team Science Approach
Struggling to find time to write that research paper is a common experience, and delays in publishing findings can hinder their translation into practice. These delays particularly impact marginalized faculty members, who often face additional service demands, delaying their professional milestones. Paper Chase is a structured collaborative writing program designed to enhance team science approaches. By mobilizing team synergy and re-learning writing processes, it benefits both students and faculty. In this introductory training, we will cover:
- Common barriers to writing for students and faculty
- An overview of Paper Chase and its benefits
- The role of tiered mentorship in a Paper Chase
Research with Photography
Research often relies heavily on words to explain or convey understandings. However, photos can open richer dialogues and help shift power dynamics between researchers and participants. Whether provided by the researcher as a prompt or generated by participants themselves, photos offer unique opportunities for nuanced findings. They also allow for mixed-methods approaches when compared with other data points. This training covers the following topics:
- Techniques for analyzing photographic data
- Overview of photography in research methods
- Best practices for conducting research studies with participant photography
- Best practices for conducting research studies with participant photography
Rethinking Community-Engaged Research
“Community-engaged” or “community-based participatory research” can range from being a buzzword to a deeply embedded practice, with varying interpretations among researchers. How can scholars engage in research with communities in ways that avoid perpetuating harmful legacies? What considerations and practices should researchers prioritize before, during, and after any project or partnership? This training will cover:
- Core principles of community-engaged research
- Best practices for conducting more equitable research
- Strategies for navigating demands from diverse stakeholders
Sexual Consent for Better Health
Consent is often seen as a conversation with someone else, but our internal awareness of what we want or don’t want is just as vital. The way we understand our desires and communicate them has significant implications—not only for preventing negative outcomes like sexual assault but also for enhancing positive experiences, such as increasing pleasure. This training draws from dual consent models (Jozkowski et al., 2014), primarily focusing on sexuality but also extending to other contexts, such as physical activity. Topics covered in this training include:
- Understanding dual consent models
- Effects of consent and non-consent
- Enhancing communication in consent expression
Weight Stigma in Healthcare
Body size is a common source of stigma in healthcare interactions, with up to 80% of people in larger bodies reporting stigmatizing interactions with healthcare providers. Weight stigma, or the social devaluation of people based on their body size, is pervasive and damaging, resulting in emotional reactions like fear and disgust, discrimination, and poor treatment by care providers. This training focuses on the prevalence, presentation, and harms of weight stigma in healthcare and proposes evidence-based solutions for addressing them. Topics covered in this training include:
- The impact of weight stigma on physical and mental health outcomes
- Strategies for communicating with healthcare providers and advocating for respectful, unbiased care
- How to promote inclusive language when discussing body size
- Structural and individual-level solutions to addressing weight stigma in healthcare