In This Story
In the latest episode of Public Health in Focus with Dean Perry, she speaks with Professor Becki Sutter, director of the Empowered Communities Project. Learn about the three ways the project is supporting local communities. Watch the video or read the synopsis below.
Can you tell us more about the Empowered Communities Project?
The Empowered Communities Project is probably best known for our opioid work, but really this initiative is an umbrella term for the public health work that we're doing in collaboration with our communities. We have a three-tiered approach, one, being our direct, clinical services that we offer; the second, being our community engagement, really bringing people together; and third, being our community practice, which is really about our professional development training.
You've been working in communities for a very long time. Those relationships are absolutely essential. Tell us more about how to build those relationships and how they have an impact or really improve public health for all.
I think it's about the way that we show up here at George Mason University as an anchor institution with our communities. It's our investment in the communities that we serve and really getting in there, listening, identifying not how we can build things for our communities, but really in part how we can build it with them. And so the power really is in the partnership and that we developed it in our communities.
That's perhaps a mistake that oftentimes those that perceive themselves as experts do all the time. I heard it term recently, that experts will go into a community and catch Sasquatch their way through.
Yeah. I mean, I think that's so true. I think we think that we know what our communities need, what individuals and populations need, but it really is about going in there and listening and doing it with them. Building new frameworks, building new, partnerships to really impact and in a meaningful way for the communities that we serve.
Can you help us understand more? You said that Empower Communities has one area of focus in opioid dependence. Tell us more about this issue and how we should all be more aware.
Yeah, I think where we are now, opioid use disorder and the overdoses is our number one public health emergency that's out there. And where we weren't staying before. We are now seeing it across all age populations. One of the things that's most concerning to me is watching the numbers for our adolescents and young adults and the alarming, increasing rates that we're seeing in our communities today. So a targeted focus, not just in traditional ways, but really looking at how we can work with our community partners, cross-sector criminal justice, social service partners and others to really impart meaningful change.
That multisectoral approach, and I'm also hearing trust and also listening and very much valuing the expertise that already exists. And that is natural and intrinsic in communities. Where do you see these projects going in the near future?
I think the communities will define that for us. I think that looking at what the next public health issue is that needs to be addressed and really, addressing those as they come. I think that will guide itself to what we're looking at from our numbers, from our data, from our communities voice themselves.
Is there anything else that you'd like us to know about the Empowered Communities Project?
I think it's let's get involved. I think it's about really getting our faculty and our expertise and really joining in forces with our communities and reach out, you know, let us know how you would like to, collaborate and how you would like to work across this initiative.