SBC Workshop : Partners Communicating in Times of Crisis and Uncertainty
Workshop date will be announced soon.
The Sheela Basrur Centre is offering a communications
workshop to teach participants skills for communicating with
stakeholders across a variety of public health roles.
In addition it will outline approaches to
enhance collaboration between organizations and community partners when
tackling current and emerging public health risks, using the opioid epidemic
and vaping-related illnesses as examples.
Focusing on stakeholder collaboration, this interactive session
will highlight communications theory and best practices for responding to
health emergencies. The workshop will also cover foundational communications principles
like transparency, listening, stigma, ambiguity, panic and communications
coordination. Through a combination of learning methods, including interactive elements
and small-group exercises, participants will have opportunities to consider how
they can apply various communications strategies for engaging with
organizations and community partners during a crisis and times of uncertainty.
Proposed
learning objectives
By the end of this session, participants
will be able to:
- Identify
opportunities for communication and stakeholder collaboration to support public
health action on current and emerging risks.
- Describe common challenges and risks
in communicating with stakeholders.
- Use communications techniques and
tools to enhance collaboration with stakeholders.
- Incorporate communications principles
in public health responses and practice related to opioid use and vaping.
Facilitated by Dr. Marsha L. Vanderford
Dr. Marsha L.
Vanderford is the former Director of Communications at the World Health
Organization (WHO) where she led WHO’s emergency communication response to Zika
virus and Yellow Fever; and provided cross-agency communication oversight for
the Yemen cholera crises, 2017 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Ebola outbreak and the humanitarian crises
in Nigeria and Syria.
Since retiring from
WHO in 2017, Dr. Vanderford has served as a risk communication consultant for
organizations including WHO, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the
Food and Agriculture Organization,
the Task Force for Global Health and public health agencies in Myanmar and the
Bahamas.
Dr. Vanderford
currently serves on the 2019 WHO International Health Regulations Emergency Committee for Ebola in DRC. Previously,
she was the communication lead for CDC’s Global Health Center and the Chief of
CDC’s Emergency Risk Communication Branch. In these roles she led CDC’s
communication response during multiple public health emergencies including
foodborne disease outbreaks, hurricanes, the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill and
the 2009-10 H1N1 Influenza pandemic. She earned her Ph.D. from the University
of Minnesota.
Workshop date will be announced soon.