Workforce training: Filling a gap in injury prevention
Harborview Injury Prevention Trainings
A decade ago, the Northwest was identified as the largest area in the U.S. without regional coordination for workforce training efforts. Since then, the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice (NWCPHP) has reached out to the six-state region of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming to fill this gap and to link academia with the public health practice community.
Aid came in the form of grant from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). This allowed NWCPHP to bring the public health and the academic communities from each state together to identify its unique needs and develop a tailored plan for providing public health training in the practice community.
The Workforce Preparedness Center project was a collaborative effort between NWCPHP and the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center (HIPRC). In 2000, the HIPRC was awarded a subcontract to participate in the regional development of learning curricula for the six-state region. This collaboration provided the opportunity for the HIPRC to work with regional partners to develop and deliver training related to injury control and other topics.
The result was an eight-week “Strategies for Success” evaluation course, developed and piloted by HIPRC staff. The target audience was managers and supervisors in state and local health departments. Twenty participants came to Casper, Wyoming, in October of 2001 in conjunction with the Wyoming Public Health Association meeting.
The training began with a three-hour on-site training, followed by class projects and assignments using distance learning technology. The training concluded with a phone conference where participants shared their projects with the class and received feedback from participants and instructors.
Additional regional training focused on several primary training areas, and included:
- Adapting a version of the epidemiology course for a two and half day training at state-based Institutes in Wyoming and Montana
- Offer the program evaluation module, “Strategies for Success,” to network states
- Design and conduct a three-day fellowship training session for the network states on injury prevention and mass trauma preparedness entitled Injury Control and Mass Trauma Prevention Residential Training. Students came from state and local health departments, traffic safety agencies, emergency medical service (EMS) providers, healthcare practitioners, and other injury prevention-related professionals. All agreed on the importance of reducing trauma, but reported that there were few credible opportunities for training in the region.
- Develop a Web site for Washington state assessment coordinators that would provide resources related to epidemiology and assessment.
- Organize a “Behavioral Approaches to Injury Control” conference, where nationally renowned experts discussed the practical application of behavioral sciences to the study and prevention of injury. The conference provided a forum for colleagues in psychology, public health, and injury science to collaborate.
