Health Education & Training Institute

This training is designed for helpers who work with boys and men, including clinicians, therapists, social workers, educators, coaches, mentors, and community-based practitioners. This training is held in partnership with Maine Boys to Men. This wonderful organization empowers boys and men to embrace and reimagine their own masculinity and build safer, stronger communities.

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Many men today feel caught between outdated cultural expectations and rapid social change. Traditional models of masculinity, once narrow but clearly defined, have been widely criticized, yet few healthy alternatives exist. As a result, many men struggle to find meaningful connections, emotional language, and a sense of worth or belonging. These struggles often show up as isolation, anger, depression, addiction, or disengagement.

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This training invites participants into a compassionate and forward-looking exploration of masculinity, one that integrates strength with gentleness, responsibility with care, and dignity with empathy. Rather than shaming men for past models, this training focuses on understanding the pressures men face today and co-creating a more sustainable, emotionally literate vision of manhood.

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Motivational Interviewing (MI) provides the core framework for this training. MI is a particular way of talking with people about change and growth to strengthen their own motivation and commitment. For helpers, MI offers a relational approach that moves away from fixing, confronting, or managing behavior and toward partnership, compassion, and respect for autonomy. This is especially important when working with men and boys, who often disengage from helping relationships when they feel judged, shamed, or pressured. Motivational Interviewing equips helpers to build trust and engage men and boys in conversations about emotions, relationships, identity, and purpose in ways that preserve dignity and allow strength and vulnerability to coexist.

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Participants will examine the cultural and psychological forces contributing to men’s emotional isolation, including conflicting social messages, economic and educational shifts, and the loss of clear rites of passage and community-based belonging. The training also explores why many men avoid therapy or support spaces and how shame and emotional illiteracy reinforce silence and disconnection.

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Through discussion, reflection, and practical frameworks, this training highlights the urgent need for new role models, supportive peer communities, and rituals of brotherhood that allow men to grow without judgment. Emphasis is placed on accountability rooted in care rather than humiliation, and on redefining purpose in ways that are grounded, relational, and non-dominating.

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By 2026, the vision is to cultivate the “male heart”: spaces and communities where men can develop emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually, while feeling valued, connected, and fully human.

Learning Level: Intermediate

Learning Objectives Include:

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• Understanding the cultural and emotional challenges facing men and boys today

• Identifying how shame and emotional isolation impact men’s mental health

• Exploring healthier, integrated models of masculinity

• Learning how to foster supportive, non-judgmental spaces for men and boys

• Understanding how Motivational Interviewing supports effective helping relationships

• Practicing MI skills such as reflective listening, eliciting hopes and dreams, and responding to ambivalence/duality 

• Shifting from fixing or confronting behavior to supporting men and boys in discovering their own motivation for growth

• Reimagining accountability, leadership, and purpose through empathy and connection

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