Training for Community Health : Bridging the Global Health Care Gap

Many countries around the world rely on community health workers to provide healthcare to those without immediate access, connecting them to formal health systems, and whilst numerous Community Health Worker (CHW) programmes exist, there is little research published on the need for ongoing high-quality training and supervision, or the role technology can play in supporting this. Training for Community Health: Bridging the global health care gap is a practical resource on the nuances and intricacies of CHW programmes today. Written by experienced academics and practitioners in CHW training, education, and supervision, this resource offers a trustworthy overview to this emerging field, with insights from across the globe. Over 13 chapters, this unique resource explores how technology can be used to support structured training programmes, and is interspersed with practical examples of how to design, implement, and evaluate CHW programmes. cover 1 Training for Community Health 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 14 Abbreviations 16 Contributors 18 1. Introduction 20 2. The Role of Technology in Supporting the Education of Community Health Workers and their Leaders 30 3. Learning How Not to Train the Community Out of the Community Health Workers 44 4. Approaches to Community Health Worker Training and Supervision 70 5. Digital Health Interventions for Community Health Worker Training, Ongoing Education, and Supportive Supervision: Insights from a Human-​Centred Design Approach 86 6. Designing Pedagogically-​Driven Approaches to Technology-​Enhanced Learning for Community Health Workers 106 7. Mobile Phones and the Uses of Learning in a Training Intervention for Kenyan Community Health Workers 120 8. Using Participatory Approaches for Community Health Worker Training 140 9. The Danger of a Single Study: Developing Responsive Evidence Bases to Inform Research, Policy, and Practice on the Training of Community Health Workers in Low and Middle-​Income Countries 156 10. Methods of Evaluation of Community Health Worker Training: Theory and Practice 176 11. Recognition, Mutual Respect, and Support: A Relational Approach to Training and Supervision in Community Health Work 196 12. Conclusion: Towards a Pedagogy for Community Health Workers? 214 Afterword: Pedagogy of the Technical and the Political 222 Appendix: Case Studies 228 1. Last Mile Health 228 2. Leap, the mHealth Platform 232 3. Muso 236 4. Partners in Health 240 5. Pivot 244 Index 248 Over a decade ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified a severe shortage of health care workers in the global health workforce (WHO 2006), with rural and low-income settings being disproportionately affected (Global Health Workforce Alliance, 2013). Simultaneously, emerging evidence suggested that the deployment of community health workers (CHWs) in these areas was helping to increase access to basic health care, particularly for underserved population groups (Lehman et al., 2007). More than a decade later, as highlighted in particular by the Ebola outbreaks in Sub-Saharan Africa and the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, CHWs have become an essential part of an increasingly stretched, yet interconnected, global health workforce Training For Community Health: Bridging The Global Health Care Gap Provides A Comprehensive And Multifaceted Overview Of Chw Programmes.