Welcome to Healthy Connections: News from Center for
Health Training...

Issue #2
Summer 2010

In this issue:

• Knowledge, Attitudes and Skills for Providing Effective Sexuality Education
• A Women's HIV/AIDS Peer Educator Training Project
• Reaching New Heights: A Systems Approach to Cultural and Community Proficiency
• Featured Resources

Knowledge, Attitudes and Skills for Providing Effective Sexuality Education

The late Joan Helmich, program director at CHT-Seattle, said it best: Comprehensive sexuality education goes "waaaaay beyond abstinence and condoms." CHT's trainings focus on sexuality education that is:

• Comprehensive
• Client-centered
• Culturally proficient
• Research and theory-based
• Developmentally appropriate
• Skills focused, and
• Values driven.

In the community

In 1987, CHT pioneered the Institutes for Community/Sexual Health Educators (ICHEs). ICHEs provide a residential, intensive, skills-based training for sexuality, STD/HIV, and family planning educators, plus teachers and others who work with youth. CHT sponsors ICHEs in the northwest (NICHE), the western region (WRITCHE), and the southwest (SWICHE).

ICHEs routinely cover how to teach topics such as HIV/STDs, abstinence, safer sex, communication, and working with parents. Participants analyze behavioral and learning research, best practices and teaching methodologies. And, practice is essential. Each participant does a presentation. Peers share priceless feedback.

In the clinic

Through CHT's Family Planning Basics course, clinic staff focus on providing high-quality, client-centered education and counseling on sexuality and reproductive health. A Certificate of Competence is awarded to those who complete the training and successfully pass both written and oral exams.

In the classroom

With sister company James Bowman Associates (JBA), CHT provides training on BIG DECISIONS™, an abstinence-plus sexuality education curriculum. Preliminary studies have shown this program is promising: middle- and high-school aged participants show improvement in attitudes, behavioral intentions, and self-efficacy from pretest to posttest.

Across the board, CHT helps set the professional standard for providing effective, comprehensive sexuality education.

 

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A Women's HIV/AIDS Peer Educator Training Project

A National Peer Advocacy Training & Capacity Building Program Targeting Women Living with HIV

The Lotus Project , a collaboration between The Center for Health Training (CHT) and Women Organized to Respond to Life Threatening Disease (WORLD), was funded by HRSA from 2005-2010 as one of three Peer Education Training Sites (PETS). Through this project, a women focused Peer Education Training curriculum was developed and implemented around the country in 10 states for over 200 women living with HIV, the majority of whom were women of color.

"The Lotus Project rejuvenated me, it's made me stronger. I don't mind telling anyone: Hey, look, have you been tested? It's serious business. I'm all about saving—reaching someone to understand that this is real, and it's not going anywhere unless we do or say something about it."

—Lotus Trained Peer Advocate

The project's other goal was to increase the capacity of health care providers to utilize peer educators in multidisciplinary care teams. Capacity building was provided in the form of consultations, workshops, and resources to build and expand peer programs targeting women living with HIV. Areas of assistance included:

• Peer supervision
• Hiring & retaining peers
• Identifying funding for peer related activities
• Assessing organizational readiness to utilize peers

"The Lotus Project has been instrumental in providing us the time, the effort and the support which made our work easier. When we talk about collaborations/networks across regions, the Lotus Project's staff has been the supportive shoulders we can depend on."

—Antoinette Barnes Bridge, Leadership Program Manager, SisterLove, Inc.

Future Goals and Direction

The Lotus Project has been a vehicle for building a national network of positive women peer advocates in the US. As the Lotus Project funding comes to an end, we will continue to provide consultation (fee for service) and resources (free) to those organizations interested in expanding and strengthening their peer programs or those interested in peer advocacy trainings for their peers.

Resources

In collaboration with two other Peer Education Training Sites and the Peer Education and Evaluation Research Center (PEER Center) a wealth of resources have been compiled and are available for FREE. Resources include webcasts for peers & peer supervisors, curriculum modules and training for peers, a capacity-building toolkit that provides a framework to successfully plan and utilize peers to engage and retain people living with HIV/AIDS in care and treatment, video clips showing the value of peers, etc. Visit the PEER Center: peer.hdwg.org

For information and to request assistance with your peer program contact:

Shailey Merchant Klinedinst, MPH ~ merchant@jba-cht.com Phone: 510.835.3700 X119

 

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Reaching New Heights: A Systems Approach to Cultural and Community Proficiency

In Towards a Culturally Competent System of Care, Terry L. Cross et al define "cultural competence" as "a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and enable that system, agency, or those professionals to work effectively in cross-cultural situations." Each individual brings to the work environment his or her own attitudes, beliefs and values about the clients and communities with which they work. Organizations build cultural capacity by engaging in activities and processes that are strategic, inclusive and ongoing at all levels of the organization.

A systems change approach to cultural proficiency is a way to ensure sustainable actions regarding issues of culture, diversity and parity in how clients access and receive/experience services. Organizations committed to these concepts do not simply want them attached to their Boards, administrators, managers and staff, but strive for these concepts to live and breathe in every aspect of their work.

Over the last ten years, we have worked with a variety of organizations ranging from a community health center that operates two clinics in an urban area; a large family planning and reproductive health organization that operated 17 clinics in an eight-county region; a nonprofit organization that works in three regions in the U.S.; and a community-based organization that provides HIV/AIDS care services in an urban area. In our work with organizations, we typically use a six-step process to assess organizational cultural capacity…

• First, we meet with the organization's leaders to organize the process. During this step, we ask the leader of the organization to appoint a team leader and convene a work group. She or he then works with the team leader and work group to affirm the work group's roles and responsibilities, and the work group develops a work plan. At the end of this step, the organization's leaders communicate the process to staff and volunteers.
• Second, we collect data and organizational documents including mission, vision and values; bylaws; strategic plan/work plan; affirmative action plan; organizational chart; list of staff; operations manuals (policies & procedures); demographic information for the Board, staff, volunteers, clients/patients, and community; and staff training outlines and schedules.
• Third, we conduct a management assessment. Specifically, we interview administrators and managers and collect, compile and summarize interview findings.
• Fourth, we conduct similar interviews with key staff and, in some cases, volunteers.
• Fifth, if the organization conducts a client survey, we integrate cultural proficiency questions, as needed, into the existing client survey and/or conduct key informant interviews and focus groups to gather information on clients. In addition, we may conduct community mapping and assessment to create a current description of the communities in the organization's service area.
• Finally, we review all of the data and information with multiple audiences—both internal and external—and implement an action planning process. One of the innovative aspects of our work is the use of the Stages of Readiness to Change model—based on Prochaska and DiClemente's stages of change model—to guide organizations from assessment to developing, launching and sustaining cultural proficiency efforts.

If we can help you reach new heights in your organization's efforts to provide culturally proficient services, contact us!

 

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Featured Resources

Toolkit for Integrating HIV Services in Native Health Settings

Visit our Products section to download this free resource.

This is a new resource for health care providers working with Native communities (or hoping to) who are interested in increasing and integrating HIV-related services. This Toolkit is a collaboration between Center for Health Training in Oakland, CA. and National Native American AIDS Prevention Center in Denver, CO.

 

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