If there’s one enormous lesson US-based health organizations can take from the Ebola crisis, it’s to be prepared. Yet in my experience working with health departments across the United States, this preparedness rarely trickles down to community health workers.

CHWs are, as One Million Community Health Workers says, “uniquely positioned to improve access to care, health-seeking behavior, and healthy behavior.” CHWs can play a critical role in educating communities in Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) awareness and protection and also contact tracing and surveillance.

If you haven’t yet begun training your CHWs in what to do with Ebola in your community, start now. Here are a few dependable resources you can begin with by circulating to your team:

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Our friends at the 6th Annual Patient Navigator/Community Health Worker Conference have announced the date for the upcoming event (May 7, 2015) and have released a call for submissions for breakout sessions. If you haven’t been to this conference, you should consider going. CHWs and navigators from all around the country come, and it’s quickly emerging as the preeminent event in the field.

Telling Our Stories: The 6th Annual Patient Navigator/Community Health Worker Conference

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Four Points Sheraton Norwood

1125 Boston-Providence Highway (Route 1), Norwood, MA

Registration will open in early spring.

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Length: 60 minutes

Everyone talks about online learning, but what does it really mean? We’ll cut through the jargon to explain the basics of health-based e-learning, and discuss why offering online courses can help you boost your enrollment numbers. We’ll identify the elements you’ll need to structure your online training program.

Watch this on-demand webinar to learn how to get the whole team on board, what the technology requirements are, and why your learners are probably asking for online module delivery. You’ll walk away with knowledge about online training that will help energize your organization and help you increase participation in your program.

View the webinar now >>

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CHWTraining.org is hosting a free webinar event on October 7 for any AHEC administrator hungry for information about how to expand education and enrollment through e-learning. Directors, program administrators and trainers from AHECs are invited to attend.

Introduction to E-learning: What Every AHEC Needs To Know About Online Training is complimentary and will begin at 1pm Eastern (10am Pacific), during which you’ll learn:

• How to get the whole team on board
• What the technology requirements are
• Why your learners are probably asking for online module delivery
• And much more!

Space is limited for this event, so you don’t want to miss your chance to get in on the action. Please register now!

LIVE WEBINAR DETAILS:
Date: Oct. 7, 2014
Time: 10am Pacific/1pm Eastern
Length: 60 minutes

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Most administrators think that online training is the easy solution to training health workers who live and work in remote, rural locations. These tips will help your distance learning program a bigger success.

People who live in remote areas–as many community health workers do–are often left out of excellent training opportunities. They simply live too far from a central meeting space to participate in many courses.

Online learning is an obvious solution because organizations can deliver high-quality education without the need of a meeting space. So directors and managers often throw online courses at their most far-flung workers and consider the job done.

Sure, internet-based training really can make all the difference between building skills as a professional and lacking knowledge. But training people who live far from their peers isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. Programs separated by geographical distance will be even better if a few key factors are addressed from the onset.

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The term “online learning” is notoriously slippery. One person’s PDF handout is another person’s webinar.

While defining the way you deliver training online to community health workers might be confusing to the uninitiated, there is a method that the industry follows. Here’s a handy little guide to how e-learning is delivered, which is summed up in two words: asynchronous and synchronous.

Asynchronous: Learning At Different Times

Asynchronous means that learners may be in the class together, but they’re not online at the same time. One person might log in to review their work in the morning, while another logs in at midnight. They’re reviewing the same information, they even might be completing assignments together, but they do their work at different times. The work gets done when the learner does it. There may or may not be a facilitator or instructor with asynchronous learning. Examples:

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When: Tues., Oct. 7, 2014, 1pm ET
Length: 60 minutes

Add to Calendar

Everyone talks about online learning, but what does it really mean? We’ll cut through the jargon to explain the basics of health-based e-learning, and discuss why offering online courses can help you boost your enrollment numbers. We’ll identify the elements you’ll need to structure your online training program.

In this webinar, you’ll learn how to get the whole team on board, what the technology requirements are, and why your learners are probably asking for online module delivery. You’ll walk away with knowledge about online training that will help energize your organization and help you increase participation in your program.

Register now >>

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Dozens of new services and promise to bring strength to your online community health worker training program. Here are five that are honestly useful.

Unless you’re considering setting up and hosting your own online learning program in-house (most organizations go with a managed hosting company like Talance unless they have a dedicated technical department with specialists), the list of technical tools you actually need to run your program is pretty short:

• A computer
• A mobile device for testing
• Headphones, speakers or some way of listening to audio
• A connection to the Internet

If you have CHWs in the field, that list might expand to include a terminal for checking lessons and possibly a printer.

Meanwhile, the list of software, apps and online services that promise a more productive and engaging online learning program continues to grow. Look at this enormous list of lists from Education World magazine, for starters.

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With the right team in place, your organization can establish and a successful online health worker training program that meets the needs of your learners.

The only way to create an online learning program that works and complements your organization is to plug into the right brainpower. But your team of online health training staff will look a little different from your average health training staff. The best programs have teams that are well trained in working with an online student base. Here are the essential members you’ll need for your team.

Executive Decision-Maker

This is an executive-level manager who is an advocate for the team and able to approve any necessary expenditures. The decision-maker is also the key approver on all decisions—especially ones that require a budget. This person may not attend meetings, but at least reviews executive summaries or meets with the project leader of the team for status. Having executive-level support is essential for a successful program.

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