So how can Cross-Training work to overcome obstacles faced by both providers and clients in rural areas? By:

• Increasing knowledge and awareness in relation to substance abuse and infectious disease and working to decrease stigma and negative attitudes.
  
  
• Supporting multilevel perspectives about the related biological and psychosocial health risks and treatment interventions.
  
  
• Facilitating interagency dialogue and helping to provide a local network aimed at reducing substance abuse and infectious disease.
  
  
• Integrating rural planning coalitions for filling service gaps (e.g., with the help of Cross-Training, local planning teams have been successful at securing CSAT, CDC, and HRSA grants to address specific integration issues).
  
  
• Providing a framework for addressing structural barriers and launching new integrated interventions (e.g., such as coordinated referrals among prevention and treatment agencies).
  
  
• Creating cross-disciplinary linkages for working as a team (e.g., integrating screening questions into routine healthcare and other human service situations).
  
  
• Stressing the need to look at the whole client and each individual situation and at each community as being culturally unique.
  
  
• Helping to develop and tailor effective strategies for working with various populations that may face specific cultural and organizational barriers in accessing health care, including Hispanics, Native Americans, migrant workers, and men who have sex with men.