Local Public Health Training Institute

Local Public Health Training Institute Advisory Council Meeting Minutes November 20, 2006

Meeting participants: Kathy Atkinson, MDPH Dawn Baxter, PSI Sally Cheney, MDPH Kathleen Gilmore, MDPH Allison Hackbarth, MDPH Paul Halfmann, MDPH Peg Harrington, MDPH Richard Lehan, DEP (by phone) Kathleen MacVarish, BU School of Public Health (by phone) Paul Morse, University of Massachusetts Lowell Donna Moultrup, MHOA Priscilla Neves, MDPH Amy Rosenstein, PSI Frank Singleton, MPHA Charlotte Stepanian, MAPHN Cheryl Sbarra, MAHB

Meeting starting time: 12:00 p.m.

I. Key findings from Institute meetings with Regional Coalitions In October and November, Institute staff attended seven regional coalition meetings to explore how the Institute can most effectively meet their training needs. The meetings focused on unmet training needs, effective mechanisms for publicizing trainings and preferences for training formats. Amy Rosenstein presented to the Advisory Council a summary of regional coalition input collected at these meetings.

One training need that was identified in these meetings was clarification on which ICS courses would meet local public health deliverable requirements. Follow-up: Amy will follow-up with Joe Cahill to identify this information and include it on the Institute website.

A training topic that was identified by several regional coalitions related to setting up and running shelters. The Advisory Council discussed that it is important to look at what local public health’s role is in providing shelter, and that training should support this role. It is also important to identify who has the lead and supporting roles. The ESF 6 and ESF 8 documents should be reviewed to help identify types of training or information that may support this role. The MHOA template can also provide information on this.

1 Follow-up: Amy will review ESF 6 and ESF 8 documents and the MHOA template, and will bring a summary to the Advisory Council about local public health roles related to shelter and suggestions on how we can provide training to support these roles.

Some of the training needs that are identified by the Institute may not be ones that it can address directly, but we can help identify other organizations or resources that address this need. For example, while the Institute does not provide direct support to the MRCs as a primary target audience, we can help identify resources that may be useful to them.

The Institute discussed the use of classroom trainings relative to on-line trainings. One person suggested that classroom trainings could be most useful for trainings in which participants need to demonstrate specific skills. However for some trainings, people ideally need field training for the opportunity to apply skills, though field training is difficult to provide. It was noted that it improving level of performance takes time, and that as a first step, providing training by level of performance lends itself to this process.

Institute staff will attend additional regional coalition meetings in December and January, and the summary of findings will be updated to reflect these meetings.

II. Update from Curriculum sub-committee & discussion of next steps Kathleen MacVarish provided an update on the work of the Curriculum subcommittee on developing a competency model for local public health. For each of four local public health functional areas (governance, management, public health nursing, and environmental health), the subcommittee has identified competency domains, specific competencies needed by that group, and a set of competencies that people working in all four areas need. A first draft of this model has been completed. Over the long term, the goal is to identify a curriculum that develop these competencies, which can be supported by the associations affiliated with the Coalition for Local Public Health, and the Institute. The model will also be useful to identify gaps in trainings.

It was noted that this is a large project, and questions have been raised about the next steps for completing it. It will be important to have the support of the Coalition for Local Public Health to emphasize the importance of this project.

The model is ready for review and feedback both from the Advisory Council and from other local public health practitioners. Follow-up:  The Committee will send the competency materials for review by the Advisory Council in December. In addition, AC members will also be asked to identify three other people from their organizations to participate in the review. The month of January will be used to collect feedback from this additional group.  Amy and Kathleen MacVarish will develop identify potential next steps for the project and the resources required to complete them.

III. Update on “Flu Care at Home” project Amy and Kathleen Gilmore provided an update on the flu care project workgroup, which has begun to plan for focus groups in early winter to guide content development. In addition, the

2 workgroup has begun to identify core content for this project. The Advisory Council agreed that focus groups will provide important information on assumptions about the type of information that people need and about formats to be used, and that the workgroup should move forward on the focus groups and on content development.

The scope of the project is still to be determined based on funding that is available. MDPH is in the process of researching funding sources for some of the possible components of this project, such as the video and web-based materials.

IV. Institute website and on-line trainings There was some discussion about the type of web-based trainings from other organizations that should be included on the website. Some web casts that Advisory Council members have viewed have not been pertinent to Massachusetts. It was suggested that if the Institute website includes web casts, a note could be included which states that people who view the web cast should be aware that it may not be applicable in this state.

Amy presented an evaluation form that can be used by the Advisory Council members for evaluating on-line trainings. Using this form, Institute staff would first review an on-line training, and then send it on to MDPH reviewers and other Advisory Council members who agree to assist in this process. Important questions to consider in evaluating on-line courses are whether they fill a training gap, and how applicable the content is to Massachusetts.

It was suggested that the Advisory Council could help identify potential areas that could be supplemented with on-line courses, and then the Institute could identify possible trainings on these topics, and then initiate the evaluation process described above.

Follow-up: The Institute will initiate a review process for one on-line course to test this process for identifying on-line trainings.

V. Next Meeting The Advisory Council agreed that the December meeting should be cancelled. Amy will work with Sandy Collins to determine the next meeting date and will e-mail the information out as soon as the date has been sent.

Meeting adjournment time: 2:00 p.m.