StarkMHAR Trainings
About StarkMHAR Trainings
Working in partnership with clients, families, healthcare, and behavioral health providers, local county systems such as education, criminal justice, law enforcement, health and human services, elected officials, businesses, faith-based organizations, and community members, StarkMHAR strives to offer a full curriculum of educational events to inspire innovation and to ensure accountability and effectiveness in our local system of client care.
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While most StarkMHAR trainings are free of charge, registration is necessary to be admitted on the training date(s).
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Questions
For training questions, please contact the Training Coordinator or 330-455-6644
Looking Ahead: New Trainings Coming Soon
We’re grateful for your participation in the wide range of trainings we’ve offered throughout the year. As we approach the end of the fiscal year (June 30), you may notice fewer trainings currently listed—this is expected as we shift focus to preparing for the year ahead.
Behind the scenes, we’re actively planning new and engaging offerings for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1. Stay tuned—more opportunities are on the way!
Thank you for your valuable input through training evaluations and provider surveys. Your feedback plays a key role in helping us align our trainings with the evolving needs of our local system of client care.
MAY 2025
QPR – Question.Persuade.Refer.
May 14 | 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm @ Stark County Educational Service Center | CEUs Not Applicable
QPR (Question. Persuade. Refer.) is an evidence-based training that teaches three simple steps anyone can learn to help prevent suicide. Just like CPR, QPR is an emergency response to someone in crisis and can save lives. QPR is the most widely taught Gatekeeper training in the world.
Motivational Interviewing I & II
May 13 & 14 | 9:00 am – 4:30 pm @ StarkMHAR | CEU Applicable
Motivational Interviewing is a collaborative, person-centered form of guiding to elicit and strengthen motivation for change. It is a way of working with persons to assist them in accessing their intrinsic motivation to change behaviors that contradict their essential values and interfere with the achievement of their life goals. Motivational Interviewing is both a philosophy and a set of strategic techniques. It is an evidence-based treatment with a broad range of applications. The Center for Evidence-Based Practices makes an attempt to incorporate exercises and examples specific to the unique practice settings of participants, with an emphasis on individuals with severe and persistent mental illness and/or substance use disorders.
Suicide Prevention Symposium: Empowering Communities to Save Lives
Featuring Dr. Sally Spencer-Thomas, an internationally renowned psychologist and mental health advocate, and Dr. David Jobes, a leading expert in evidence-based suicide prevention and author of seven books, along with local experts.
May 28, 2025 | 8:30 am – 5:00 pm @ Kent State Stark Conference Center | CEUs Pending
The Suicide Prevention Symposium on Empowering Communities to Save Lives is an impactful event designed to equip attendees with critical insights and strategies to prevent suicide and support mental health in a community. Drawing from lessons learned from a recent suicide cluster, the symposium will provide actionable items that communities can implement to prevent suicide. It will also discuss transforming the narrative and culture around men’s mental health, as well as reimagining suicide care to effectively decrease emotional pain and distress that can lead to suicidal thoughts or behaviors. A unique “Engage and Exchange: A Fireside Chat with the Doctors” session will provide participants with the opportunity to engage directly with the experts and ask questions, gain valuable insights for advancing mental health and suicide prevention efforts, making the symposium an invaluable resource for anyone dedicated to suicide prevention and mental health advocacy.
JUNE 2025
Family Peer Support
June 9 – 13 | 9:00 am – 4:00 pm @ StarkMHAR
This training is for parents with lived experience raising a child with behavioral/mental health challenges who are interested in learning how to support other families in navigating youth-serving systems. The FREDLA Parent Peer Support Provider training is an approved training curriculum for certification to become an Ohio Certified Family Peer Supporter. Family peer support (FPS) is a unique workforce required to use their lived experience in a professional manner to support other families with children and youth with mental health challenges. This is a 5-day training and is nationally recognized in the competency areas identified by the National Family Peer Specialist certification exam. Because this curriculum is a practice model, there are many opportunities to practice the skills you will learn throughout the training. This training fulfills the training requirements of the certification.
Advanced Cultural Competency
You must have attended the Basic Cultural Competency Part 1 training to attend the advanced session.
June 10 | 9:00 am – 5:00 pm @ StarkMHAR | CEU Applicable
The Cultural Competency Training (CCT) Advanced module will increase the awareness, knowledge and skills required to function effectively with cultural differences that may be present in the area of medical services, service organizations and agencies, medical interpretation and community partnership. The CCT Advanced curriculum includes, but is not limited to: building a culturally competent system of care and community partnership.
Verbal Intervention
June 18 | 8:00 am – 5:00 pm @ StarkMHAR | CEUs Not Applicable
Verbal Intervention (VI) Training provides skills to build an effective culture of safety within an organization. It is designed to help professionals in any setting provide the best possible Care, Welfare, Safety, and Security for individuals presenting a range of crisis behaviors.
CIT Dispatcher
June 24 | 8:00 am – 5:00 pm @ StarkMHAR | CEUs Not Applicable
Stark County Mental Health & Addiction Recovery supports the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training of law enforcement professionals in our community. Crucial to reducing violence and ensuring successful intervention of mental health and substance use situations, dispatchers are trained in proven and effective communication techniques. The CIT model was first developed and implemented in 1988 by the Memphis, Tennessee Police Department. The Team was developed to address the special challenges to law enforcement posed by persons with mental illness and to better serve the community. Emergency dispatchers are a critical link in the CIT program and may include call-takers, dispatchers and 911 operators. The success of CIT depends on their familiarity with the CIT program, knowledge of how to recognize a CIT call involving a behavioral crisis event, ability to solicit information that will help the community member and the responding CIT Officer, and appropriate dispatch of CIT Officers.
Advanced CIT: Safety on the Spectrum
June 25 | 9:00 am – 12:00 pm @ StarkMHAR | CEUs Not Applicable
The Safety on the Spectrum™ Law Enforcement training is a nationwide effort by the Autism Society of America and participating affiliates, including the Autism Society of Greater Akron (ASGA). This training is essential due to the growing prevalence of Autism, the increased risk of Autistic individuals becoming victims of crime, and the rising frequency of interactions between people with Autism and law enforcement.
Screening for Risk of Violence & Managing Your Duty to Protect
June 27 | 9:00 am – 12:15 pm @ Virtual | CEUs Pending
This 3-hour online program will offer detailed training on a standardized empirically based risk of violence screening tool, and assure behavioral health professionals know when their duty to protect third parties from potentially violent mental health clients attaches and how to discharge that duty consistent with professional standards, ethical obligations, and legal requirements in the state of Ohio.
SFY2025 COMPLETED TRAININGS
| July | February |
| 7/10 – Community Client Rights | 2/7 – Grounding in an Ungrounded World |
| 7/15 – QPR | 2/11 – Equity & Inclusion Part 1 |
| August | 2/19 – Social Media, Behavioral Healthcare, & You |
| 8/14 – School-Based Kickoff | 2/24 – Motivational Interviewing II |
| 8/19 – CIT Fire/EMS | 2/25 – Family Centered Engagement |
| 8/19 – QPR | 2/25 – QPR |
| September | March |
| 9/17 – QPR | 3/4 – Ethics & Boundaries in Mental Health Treatment |
| 9/23 – Adult Peer Support | 3/7 – Understanding Grief, Loss, & Trauma |
| 9/23 – 40-hour CIT | 3/11 – HIPAA Compliance & The Behavioral Health System |
| October | 3/12 – Acceptance & Commitment Therapy |
| 10/10 – Verbal Intervention | 3/13 – Documentation for Support Staff |
| 10/11 – QPR | 3/13 – QPR |
| 10/11 – Youth Peer Support | 3/17 – Verbal Intervention |
| 10/15 – Motivational Interviewing I | 3/18 – Motivational Interviewing for Fire/EMS Professionals |
| 10/16 – Motivational Interviewing II | 3/19 – Motivational Interviewing for Fire/EMS Professionals |
| 10/22 – Advanced CIT | 3/25 – Implicit Bias |
| 10/29 – Building a Healing-Centered, Trauma-Responsive Organization | April |
| 10/30 – Ethics in Practice | 4/1 – Naloxone & Other Dangerous Drugs for Fire/EMS Professionals |
| November | 4/1 – Implicit Bias for Fire/EMS Professionals |
| 11/5 – Equity & Inclusion Part 1 | 4/2 – Anti Stigma for Fire/EMS Professionals |
| 11/13 – 2024 Conference on Opiates & Addiction | 4/2 – Compassion Fatigue for Fire/EMS Professionals |
| 11/13 – QPR | 4/8 – Embodying Healing & Community Care: Deepening our Understanding of Trauma |
| 11/18 – 40-hour CIT | 4/10 – Costs & Gifts of Caring |
| 11/18 – Family Peer Support | 4/15 – Pride in Practice |
| December | 4/17 – Maximizing Medicare Billing |
| 12/2 – QPR | 4/18 – 40-hour CIT |
| 12/5 – Group Facilitation Skills | 4/18 – Youth Peer Support |
| 12/6 – Young Adult Peer Support | 4/22 – Mastering Psychotherapy Documentation, Assessments, and Add-On Code 90785 |
| 12/11 – Verbal Intervention | 4/23 – Foundations of the Dual Diagnosis Model |
| 12/16 – CIT Dispatcher | 4/28 – Adult Peer Recovery Supporter |
| January | 4/29 – CIT for Fire/EMS Professionals |
| 1/14 – QPR | |
| 1/14 – Motivational Interviewing I | |
| 1/24 – Assessment of Eating Disorders | |
| 1/27 – 2/7 – Peer Recovery Supporter |