Team Awareness (Updated Slide Decks)
This curriculum was updated and enhanced in 2018. Please contact us for more information about this updated version. Also, please note that pricing is for the slide decks only (with comprehensive facilitator notes). Contact us if you are interested in facilitator certification.
[NOTE 1. We STRONGLY recommend contacting us for an initial free consultation before downloading these slides. Click here to access the original 2002 manuals.]
[NOTE 2. Team Awareness is actually a family of programs and includes offshoots for resilience, health consciousness, wellbeing champions, healthy leadership, promotion of Employee Assistance, and a consultation approach. Watch this video to learn more.]
Team Awareness is a workplace training program that addresses behavioral risks associated with substance abuse among employees, their coworkers and, indirectly, their families. This program has been shown to increase employee help-seeking for and supervisor responsiveness to, troubled workers, enhance the work climate, and reduce problem drinking. These results are achieved by —
- Promoting social health
- Promoting increased communication between workers
- Improving knowledge and attitudes toward alcohol- and drug-related protective factors in the workplace (such as company policy or Employee Assistance Programs)
- Increasing peer referral behaviors
The training consists of six modules and is conducted across two 4-hour sessions with a company or business of any size. Larger companies generally require multiple training sessions. Team Awareness is highly interactive and uses group discussion, communication exercises, a board game, role play, and self-assessments. Modules cover policy ownership, enabling, stress management, listening skills, and peer referral.
Team Awareness is the first program to be recognized as a workplace-based Model Prevention program by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
The logic and content of Team Awareness were based on the IBR Workplace Project’s survey research of over 3,000 employees from three municipalities. Findings showed that employee tolerance for coworker substance use, attitudes toward discrete policy components, and work group drinking climates were each predictive of risk for substance use-related problems. Additional findings suggested that group cohesiveness and social integration at work might buffer against substance abuse risks. Team Awareness was developed in order to address both risk and protective factors identified in this survey research.
To implement the full version, we encourage both consultative phone calls and training-of-facilitators with Dr. Joel Bennett, creator of Team Awareness. Consultation includes:
- Guidance on adaptation and implementation
- Guidance on marketing for your population
- Guidance on session rating collection and tabulation
Recommended Citations: Bennett, J. B., Bartholomew, N. G., Reynolds, S., & Lehman, W. E. K. (2002). Team Awareness: Training for workplace substance abuse prevention. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University, Institute of Behavioral Research.
Joel B. Bennett, Brittany D. Linde, G. Shawn Reynolds and Wayne E. K. Lehman (2020). Building Prevention For The Workplace: An Integral And Process-Oriented Approach IN Feinberg, M. E. (Ed.). (2020). Designing Evidence-Based Public Health and Prevention Programs: Expert Program Developers Explain the Science and Art. Routledge