Interactions that Make a Difference: Intercultural and Linguistic Responsiveness Development Training for Title V Personnel (ITMD)

ITMD is a daylong intercultural and linguistic responsiveness development workshop for Title V Personnel. MCH Nutrition Leadership Program faculty and funded trainees facilitate workshops in the fall, spring, and summer semesters across the state. Participants are administrators and individuals who have direct interactions with clients, participants, and individuals who are receiving services at health departments. The workshop involves group discussions and skills training focused on cultural knowledge, awareness, skills, and responsiveness. See the agenda here.

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Interactions that Make a Difference 2.0: Intercultural and Linguistic Awareness, Knowledge, Skills, and Responsiveness Training for Graduate Students (ITMD2.0)

ITMD2.0 is an on-campus full-day workshop for graduate students in nutrition and other health-related disciplines. It was implemented in Fall 2006 in collaboration with departments and programs across campus. Every year, MCH Nutrition Leadership Program faculty and funded trainees facilitate this daylong workshop for all incoming graduate students in the Department on Nutrition and new faculty and staff in the department as well as graduate students in other health-related majors.

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MCH Nutrition Grantee’s Diversity Recruitment and Retention Learning Collaborative

The MCH Nutrition Grantee’s Diversity Recruitment and Retention Learning Collaborative, lead by the University of Tennessee’s MCH Nutrition Leadership Program faculty and funded trainees, brings together faculty and funded trainees from eight Nutrition Training Programs across the country. The learning collaborative provides a safe environment for highly-motivated faculty and students to address barriers to racial and ethnic diversity recruitment and retention and make plans to improve health equity and increase intercultural and linguistic competence development in their respective training programs through quality improvement techniques, learning opportunities with expert, technical assistance, collaboration between grantees.

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Coming Soon: Interactions that Make a Difference Online Modules

The new online module series is intended to enhance individual cultural awareness, knowledge, skills, and responsiveness of people who are health professionals or are preparing for careers in health professions. At the conclusion of this training, participants will be able to describe the role of culture in healthcare delivery and the workplace; have an enhanced personal cultural awareness; explain strategies for increasing cultural knowledge; describe culturally and linguistically appropriate communication, assessment, and intervention skills; and describe ways to increase diversity in the workplace. The enhanced modules are planned for release in Fall 2023.

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MCH Nutrition Peer Mentoring Network

The MCH Nutrition Peer Mentoring Network was created as a part of the MCH Nutrition Grantees’ Diversity Recruitment and Retention Learning Collaborative as a forum for trainees to share and learn about partnering programs and fellow trainee experiences, and to foster collaborative, peer and professional networks among funded trainees. Since inception, trainees have planned and facilitated quarterly conference calls to discuss collaborative projects, share leadership and training experiences, and promote trainee engagement across the various MCH Nutrition training programs. The trainees also collaboratively developed a MCH Nutrition Peer Mentoring Network mission statement. To supplement trainee conference calls, an online blog forum entitled A Day in the Life of a MCH Trainee was developed to enhance collaboration among trainees. To read trainee posts from A Day in the Life of a MCH Trainee online blog visit https://mchnutritiontrainees.com.

^{This project is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number T79MC09805, Leadership Education in Maternal and Child Health Nutrition, $223,777, 50% funded by the University of Tennessee, Department of Nutrition. This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.}