Session 1A:
Triangle Initiative: Where Education, Research, and the Community Intersect

Speakers: Susan Witte, Conrad Johnson, Jessica Rowe
9:10 AM - 10:00 AM

The Triangle Initiative, created by CCNMTL, leverages digital tools and capacities that serve the intersecting interests of education, research, and the larger community. This session describes three Triangle Initiative projects, the research they advance, the education they enrich, and the benefits they bring to society. Professor Susan Witte will present Multimedia Connect, a Web-based facilitator-support tool for an HIV prevention program for at-risk couples and Professor Conrad Johnson will discuss the Collateral Consequences of Criminal Charges Calculator, a decision-support tool for public defenders.

Download this presentation as an audio or video media file, or view it on iTunes U and YouTube.

See also:

Triangle Initiative Web Site

Project Overview: Collateral Consequences Calculator

Partner(s): Conrad Johnson School of Law Released: TBA In development.

Developed in partnership with Columbia Law School professor Conrad Johnson, the Collateral Consequences Calculator is a web-based "calculator" that allows legal practitioners to quickly and easily compare the collateral consequences of criminal charges associated with sections of the New York State Penal Law. The Collateral Consequences Calculator is a project within CCNMTL's Triangle Initiative and serves multiple communities: faculty can build case studies around it, lawyers can better counsel their clients, judges can assure appropriate sentencing, and public policy researchers can use it as a lens through which to examine the matrix of the New York State legal system. Judge Judith Kaye, former Chief Justice of New York State, has supported the development of this tool, which she sees as a valuable social justice initiative.

Project Overview: Connect

Partner(s): Susan Witte School of Social Work Released: TBA In development.

Connect is a couples-level intervention for heterosexual couples at risk for HIV/STIs developed by the Social Intervention Group at the School of Social Work. The intervention has been proven to reduce risky behaviors in committed heterosexual couples, the fastest growing HIV-infected group in the US. Principal Investigator Susan Witte and CCNMTL have received funding from the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH) to test a multimedia version of the intervention against the paper version at 80 community-based organizations to measure levels of adoption of the intervention in its multimedia form. Multimedia Connect represents a significant step forward in effective dissemination, providing novice facilitators with a 'road map' as they go through the intervention with clients. In addition to use in clinical settings, components of Multimedia Connect are already in use in classrooms at the Columbia School of Social Work.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has also provided funding to develop multimedia training tools to translate the existing Connect intervention materials for national dissemination. CCNMTL and Witte have packaged the intervention manual and all training materials, including 22 original video assets that model communication techniques and provide information about STIs. The materials will be used both to train facilitators and for use with intervention participants.

This project is part of the Triangle Initiative.