Recorded presentation

Darlene Shearer, DrPH, The Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center for Healthy Mothers and Babies, University of South Florida, 3111 East Fletcher Avenue, Tampa, FL 33613-4660, (813) 974-8325, dshearer@hsc.usf.edu and Sharon Miller, PhD, Adult Education, Hillsborough Community College, 39 Columbia Drive, Tampa, FL 33606.

Community health workers (CHWs) have unique skills that are immensely valuable to address population disparities on the front lines of maternal and child health services and in the homes of families they serve. The use of paraprofessional staff as home visitors and community health workers continues to have wide acceptance across the nation. However, the manner in which many of these workers are trained, utilized, supported and valued by their employers is neither uniform nor cost-effective. The Maternal and Child Services Workforce Development Program (MCSWD) is developing a training model that builds upon existing skills of CHWs and home visitors (a) to increase capacity to reduce illness, injury and death among mothers and babies and to promote a healthy, productive lifestyle in childbearing families; (b) to promote career and academic development; and (c) to increase visibility, recognition, and value of the home visiting role among MCH-related employer programs. The University of South Florida, along with three community colleges has created a unique partnership to address CHW career development and academic recognition of lay MCH workers. This partnership has resulted in the development of a competency-based core curriculum that offers academic credit that is transferable into existing post secondary human service, pre-health, and health-related professions education programs. The session will describe the unique roles, contributions, and challenges of the partners while designing, implementing and evaluating this program. Impact on the workers’ personal, academic and career development and on employer agencies in their utilization of trained workers will also be discussed.

Learning Objectives: Upon completion of this session the participant will

• Develop a clearer picture of specific gaps and needs among current staff development approaches used in training home visitors and community health workers.
• Describe the unique contributions of a university-community college partnership for building on current staff development efforts to further enhance the skill levels of trained home visitors and community health workers.
• Recognize the benefits of an applied technical diploma program for individual workers, employers, and clients.

Keywords: Training,

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Recorded presentation