ES 8. Build a diverse and skilled workforce

Core Function: Assurance

Why This Is Important

Assuring a qualified, competent, and culturally diverse workforce that reflects the populations it serves is critically important to the overall functioning of a local health department and its ability to perform its statutory functions and deliver quality services. To begin to correct the inequities that so many members of the Commonwealth experience, it is especially important that the workforce represents those groups that have been historically disenfranchised and that experience socioeconomic disadvantages.

What’s Involved

  • Actively market new staff positions to ensure that the public health workforce reflects your focus population(s).
  • Provide ongoing professional development opportunities to build the skills and competencies of staff to respond to the evolving opioid misuse landscape.
  • Support the accreditation and professionalization of behavioral health professionals.

Key Considerations

  • When hiring, think beyond “word of mouth.” “Word of mouth” recruitment tends to yield candidates whose skills, qualities, and attributes replicate the hiring committee’s composition.
  • Hiring culturally diverse staff is an important first step toward improving the cultural responsiveness of substance use-related services—but it is not the only step. Equally important is ensuring an agency-wide commitment to recognizing and valuing diverse cultural identities—such as those related to the health beliefs, practices, and language; and developing and delivering programs and services in ways that ensure that members of diverse cultural groups can benefit from them.
  • Don’t expect that staff will arrive with all the knowledge and skills they need to do their jobs well. Nor should you expect that even seasoned practitioners have all the knowledge and skills needed to respond quickly and effectively to the continually evolving opioid misuse landscape. Access to high-quality professional development (PD) that is relevant and well-supported is the foundation for a well-equipped workforce.

Get Started!

  • Seek marketing outlets and networks (e.g., websites, job boards, associations, social media) that include and focus on reaching systemically excluded groups (e.g., people with disabilities, LGBTQ+, racial and ethnic minorities, veterans). Examples include Diversity Search, Diversity Working, and Multicultural Advantage.
  • Begin to build a pipeline of candidates through networking and attendance at focused job fairs (e.g., for Historically Black Colleges and Universities). Join associations and specific LinkedIn groups (e.g., Diversity and Disability@Work, Minority Professional Network) that can connect you with a more diverse pool of potential applicants.​
  • Offer a menu of PD options comprising a combination of in-person and virtual trainings, coaching opportunities, and technical assistance (TA). These activities can build the knowledge, skills, competence, and confidence of both new and seasoned staff. (See Resources for a list of available training and TA supports).
  • Establish a culture of support for PD. Create and maintain an environment that fosters skills-building and knowledge application. Make sure program budgets include line items for PD, job descriptions include responsibilities related to PD growth, and supervisors attend trainings with staff, when appropriate.
  • Assess the PD needs of all staff, including the need for PD on equity, bias, and inclusion.
  • Develop both individual and organization-wide PD plans. Identify learning outcomes and goals that align with real-life roles and responsibilities.
  • Incorporate activities suitable for a range of adult learning styles. Concentrate on what learners need to know rather than what’s nice to know, and include opportunities for practice.
  • Set clear expectations for supervisor follow-up. Remind supervisors to embed lessons from the training into practice and daily routines.
  • Support staff accreditation. Increasingly, local health departments throughout the country and here in Massachusetts are moving toward becoming accredited by the Public Health Accreditation Board.

Professional Development in Action: Equity in Everyday Practice

The Center for Strategic Prevention Support (CSPS) provides training, TA, and resources to Massachusetts communities seeking to prevent and reduce the misuse of alcohol and other drugs. CSPS offers direct support to 53 BSAS-funded communities across the Commonwealth, and indirect support to an additional 139 “cluster” towns connected to these funded communities.

Since 2020, CSPS has implemented a multi-pronged training and TA plan to center equity and populations experiencing disparity in its work with local substance misuse prevention grantees. Activities included:

  • A substance misuse equity needs assessment with funded communities.
  • Two annual grantee conferences focused on engaging in prevention populations that have been historically excluded.
  • A 6-month series of peer sharing calls to help grantee coordinators engage community members in prevention efforts.
  • A guidance document for grantees on centering equity (e.g., addressing SDOH, asset-based assessment), featuring resources from a wide range of partners and organizations.
  • A hiring toolkit for grantees on mitigating implicit bias in hiring.
  • Support to BSAS in defining restorative prevention, including development of a brief on the concept.
  • A 4-month Equity in Everyday Practice series that explored strategies for addressing racism and supporting equity in both the workplace and in coordinators’ daily lives.

As a result of these activities, local coalitions are making changes to their work, such as inviting and paying more people of color and people with lived experience to join community prevention efforts, and including discussion of racial and health equity in their regular meetings. While not all of the CSPS activities have been rigorously evaluated, evaluation results suggest that the 2021 statewide conference was successful in providing support to BSAS grantees and other participants to address health inequities: 96% of respondents reported overall satisfaction with the conference and 97% reported that they were likely to use the information and/or ideas that they received.