1) COURSE INSTRUCTOR INTRODUCTION. Meet Dr. Terry Dwelle, the creator of our Community Engagement Basic Concepts specialized certificate course.

2) PUBLIC HEALTH AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT - INTRODUCTION. Understand the importance of community engagement in changing risky behaviors. Understand the importance of various kinds of data and analysis in developing strategies to address risky behaviors. Understand the role of public health in changing risky behaviors.

3) COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND CAPACITY BUILDING - BASIC CONCEPTS. Understand basic attributes of successful public health programs. Understand the difference between community engagement and community coercion. Understand the relationship of community engagement to process, development and external funding. Define community.

4) COMMUNICATIONS MODEL. Understand culture shock and how it relates to public health messaging. Understand the difference between messaging and transfer of meaning. Discuss the basic concepts of a communications model. Understand the importance of being respondent oriented. Discuss the role of contextualization in messaging. Review attributes of successful behavior change programs. Understand how Maslow’s pyramid relates to community message receptivity.

5) INTRODUCTION TO WORLDVIEW AND PUBLIC HEALTH. Understand how worldview impacts cultural distance. Understand that a majority of people have strong supernatural beliefs that can be used to change risky behaviors. Describe the basic beliefs of naturalism, monotheism, tribal cultures, monism, and traditional Chinese cultures. Understand the benefits and challenges of the concept of primary prevention with different cultural worldviews. Review a few examples of how religiosity impacts healthy behavior. Review key results of a SWOT survey of faith-based leaders. Describe the importance of horizontal communicators. Discuss the importance of addressing perceived needs in faith-based engagement. Discuss the importance of first dealing with spiritual fatalism before engagement. Review leadership skills for faith-based engagement.

6) REPORT 1. Answer a series of short-answer questions on key topics addressed in sessions 2-5.

7) CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS, COGNITION AND LANGUAGE. Describe the process of developing meaning in message respondents. Explain how meaning transfer relates to the communications model. Recognize the importance of the seven dimensions of cultural distance in cross-cultural communications. Describe the tri-systemic model of cognition and how that model applies to public health communications. Demonstrate the importance of stories for transmitting meaning in relationship cultures. Describe the breadth of worldwide languages and dialects. Describe the role of languages. Describe three basic steps to overcome language barriers. Explain the importance of horizontal communicators in effective community messaging. Briefly explain the importance of the semantic differential and language impact on culture.

8) MEDIA INFLUENCES. Review the communications model including the seven dimensions of cultural distance. Discuss the importance of research to identify the best media channels and media message forms for a community. Discuss the importance of working with organizations in a community engagement process. Discuss the importance of horizontal communicators in community engagement and decreasing cultural distance. Review urban and rural attributes and how they relate to community engagement and messaging strategies. Review the eight general messaging hypotheses. Review the four printed mass media suggestions. Review two examples of media research, their findings and how they relate to public health media strategies. Review eight current social media trends and their public health considerations. Briefly discuss the role of mass media meetings and small group dialogue groups and their potential application to public health messaging. Review the basic concepts of message filters.

9) MOTIVATIONAL FACTORS AND DECISION MAKING. Review the communications model and the seven dimensions of cultural distance. Discuss the importance of individuals in initiating cultural change. Discuss common barriers and stimulants for change. Review major factors that influence the process of community decision making. Review the attributes of the four major life orientations. Discuss the five appeals to change. Review decisive and indecisive cultures. Review Prochaska’s stages of change model.

10) NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATIONS. Define non-verbal communications. Discuss how non-verbal communications relate to the 7 dimensions of cultural distance. Review the non-verbal communications model. Discuss high and low context cultures. Review the visual, paralanguage, haptic, chronemic, oculesic and written text categories of nonverbal messaging.

11) CULTURAL DISTANCE AND SOCIETAL FACTORS. Review the cross-cultural communications model. Discuss approaches to decrease cultural distance. Discuss the link between socialization and enculturation. Review the definition and associated attributes of community. Review the five major functions of a community. Review the link between the social determinants of health and community functions. Discuss the attributes of dysfunctional communities. Discuss the important role of the built environment on community socialization. Review the concepts of class, status and roles and vertical and horizontal communicators in community engagement. Discuss the concepts of foreignness and marginalization in community engagement. Briefly review the role of coalitions in the community engagement process.

12) REPORT 2. Answer a series of short-answer questions on key topics addressed in sessions 7-11.

13) CONCEPTS IN WORKSITE WELLNESS. Review the negative impacts of poor employee health on the productivity of businesses. Understand the importance of absenteeism and presenteeism on the business bottom line. Review the impact of worksite wellness programs on business performance and healthcare costs. Understand the role of the integration of public health and primary care in a worksite wellness program. Review the potential role for public health in facilitating worksite wellness.

14) LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT PARTICIPATORY TECHNIQUES. Review the basic LePSA(S) process. Discuss how SMART criteria relate to LePSA(S) action planning. Discuss basic concepts of supernatural beliefs and how they relate to changing risky behaviors. Review the concepts of silence and proxemics in the LePSA(S) group process. Briefly introduce Open Space Technology.

15) COALITION BUILDING CONCEPTS. Review how coalition building relates to the community engagement continuum. Review key team building, boundary spanning, and community engagement concepts as they apply to coalition building. Discuss how coalition building is related integration. Discuss the importance of cultural competence for effective coalition building. Review how to build coalition cohesion. Review the 6 attributes of coalition effectiveness. Discuss how coalition building relates to the 10 essential public health services.

16) PUBLIC HEALTH AND DISASTERS. Understand the difference between relief and development. Be able to describe the 4 phases of disasters. List the role of public health in each or the 4 phases of disasters. Describe the public health response in the emergency and relief phase of disasters. Understand the myths and realities of disasters. Understand the important role of the incident command system and incident commander in effective disaster response. Be able to list the general duration of each phase of the disaster cycle. Describe the relationship of community engagement and resilience. Describe the 5 portions of resilience based assessment.

17) PUBLIC HEALTH AND HOUSING. Define “Health.” Discuss the importance of adequate housing for community engagement. Understand that investment in resource-poor communities improves health. Understand the impacts of poor housing on health. Understand the potential roles for public health in housing issues.

18) COMMUNITY HEALTH WORKERS AND INTEGRATION. Review the attributes of Community Health Workers. Discuss the activities of Community Health Workers. Review common outcomes and impacts of Community Health Worker activities. Discuss basic public health concepts of changing risky behaviors, integration, class, status, roles, horizontal and vertical communications and levels of message identification as it relates to community health workers. Discuss the current status of community health worker certification in the United States.

19) REPORT 3. Answer a series of short-answer questions on key topics addressed in sessions 13-18.

View and listen to nearly 9 hours of community engagement lectures. Session titles include:

- (L004-C) Public Health and Community Engagement - Introduction
- (L005-C) Community Engagement and Capacity Building - Basic Concepts
- (L025-C) Communications Model
- (L027-C) Introduction to Worldview and Public Health
- (CE002-C) Cross-Cultural Communications, Cognition, and Language
- (CE005-C) Media Influences
- (CE006-C) Motivational Factors and Decision Making
- (CE003-C) Non-Verbal Communications
- (CE004-C) Cultural Distance and Societal Factors
- (L023-C) Concepts in Worksite Wellness
- (L030-C) Leadership and Management Participatory Techniques - LePSA(S)
- (L026-C) Coalition Building Concepts
- (L024-C) Public Health and Disasters
- (L028-C) Public Health and Housing
- (CE007-C) Community Health Workers and Integration

All certificates for completing each of the 15 individual sessions are included ($75 value @ $5 each).

After you successfully complete all course components — by passing all Post-Assessments and submitting your written assignments for a satisfactory review — you will earn the distinctive Certificate of Specialized Training in Community Engagement Basic Concepts.

The written report assignments give you the opportunity to synthesize and express what you learned. For this course, you will answer a total of 15 short essay questions (100-250 words each) covering key points in the lectures. Examples of questions include "How does community engagement relate to community capacity building?" and "What are key concepts a public health leader can use to engage faith-based groups?"

A lot of material is covered in these 15 community engagement health lectures — coming to 514 slides, in fact! As part of your course registration, you will receive PDFs of the lecture slides with the corresponding audio transcript.

Along with each slide, you get the word-for-word transcription of nearly 9 hours of training lectures — a big time-saver when it comes to note taking, and a useful go-to resource long after the class.