Chapter 6 Roles, Responsibilities, Certifications, Advanced Study

Credentialing  Can take the form of accreditation, licensure, or certification.

Accreditation  “Process by which a recognized professional body evaluates an entire college or university professional preparation program.” Cleary  Look at student-teacher ratio  Curriculum  Faculty qualifications

Licensure  “Process by which an agency or government (usually a state) grants permission to individuals to practice a given profession by certifying that those licensed have attained specific standards of competence.” Cleary example?? Only licensed health educator is ___

Certification  “Process by which a professional organization grants recognition to an individual who, upon completion of a competency-based curriculum, can demonstrate a predetermined standard of performance.” Cleary  Given by the profession

Certification  One who is certified within Health Education is recognized as______

CHES  Certified Health Education Specialist

History of Role Delineation and Certification  Certification in HE got its formal start in 1978  As mentioned earlier school health educators were the only HE that were licensed

School health & Public health  Accreditation was available only for these two programs  So many HE, community health programs were not accredited –Made for great discrepancies –Too many differences between programs

What they found  Bright students were leaving HE so they could be licensed.

HE came together at a conference  Asked two questions:  What are the commonalities and differences in the function of health educators practicing in different settings?  What are the commonalities and differences in the preparation of health educators?

HE needed to have a credentialing system  Needed credentialing so that they could be a viable profession.  Thus the National Task Force on the Preparation and Practice of Health Educators was born.  See table 6.1 to see organizations represented.

Steps to making certification happen  January, 1979 role delineation for health educators got under way.  2 nd step was to verify and refine the role of a health educator. –Funding became available for this in March of 1980 and found positive results that no significant differences among practitioners in different settings.

Steps to making certification happen  3 rd step in the process was the development of a curriculum framework based on the verified role of a health educator  Initially the task force decided to develop a curriculum guide. –Specific set of guidelines from which a curriculum is developed.

Cont.  Ultimately the curriculum guide was transformed into a curriculum framework. –Providing merely a frame of reference around which a curriculum can be developed –Does not tell faculty what to teach and how but what students should have completed

Moving forward with the Certification Process  Needed a certification system  Hired Professional Examination Service (PES) which had done for many other professions. –Began creating a test –National Commission for Health Education Credentialing Inc. was formed  Still oversees the credentialing process today

Charter Certification was underway  In October 1988, the charter certification period began - allowing qualified individuals to become certified without taking the exam. –Based on individuals academic training, work experience and training. –In 1990 the charter expired.

In 1990 first exam was taken  644 individuals passed the first exam and became  Certified Health Education Specialists  Advantages: –Establishes a national standard –Attests to the individual’s knowledge and skills

Advantages cont.  Assists employers in identifying qualified health education practitioners.  Sense of pride and accomplishment  Promotes continued professional development  All students are strongly urged to take upon graduation.

If you decide to wait  Cost increases if you are a professional taking the exam vs. a recent graduate.

Graduate CHES  Now implementing  MCHES

CUP – Competencies Update Project  Now look to this group to verify the competencies of a health educator.

Entry-level Health Educator <5 yrs exp or MS’s degree  Assessing Individual and Community Needs for Health Education –May be most critical step in the planning process  What does it mean to implement a Needs Assessment?

Needs Assessment  Important elements: –Capacity of a community –Capacity assessment

Not only want to look at Needs  Want to look at  Capacity of a community –“Refers to both individual and collective resources that can be brought to bear for health enhancement”

Needs assessment cont.  Capacity assessment –Identifies the skills, resources, agencies, groups, and individuals that can be brought together in a community to solve problems and empower.

Needs Assessment cont.  Community Empowerment –  Means what to you?

Needs Assessment cont.  Health Educators must be able to assess the skills and the needs of the groups of people or individuals that they are directing programs towards  Why important?

Needs assessment cont.  “Failure to perform a needs assessment may lead to a program focus that prevents or delays adequate attention directed to a more important health problem”

 Helps determine if a program is appropriate and needed

How to get started NA  Look at secondary information –Literature review, stats from local health department  Look at primary information –May have to conduct mail surveys, telephone interviews, hold focus meeting groups

 Once gathered information must be able to analyze data and determine priority areas for health ed. Programs.

Responsibility II: Plan Health Education Strategies, Interventions, and Programs  Conducted our needs assessment –Now we think that we know what our target population’s health needs, problems and concerns are  Ask ourselves who are the stakeholders? –Why are they important?

Plan Health Education Strategies cont.  Next critical step is to write specific and measurable objectives.  Also critical is to be able to evaluate the objectives.  Next critical step is to develop appropriate interventions that will meet the goals and objectives.

Example:  University conducted a needs assessment and discovered that alcohol related incidents were a problem on campus.  What do first?

Let’s look at who are our stakeholders?  Who would you want to be a part of this strategy meeting?

Stakeholders  Representative from the Greek system  Someone from ASUU  Resident from dorms  Athletics dept  Campus police/security  Provost’s office  Rep from health ed. Office  Local chamber of commerce  Neighborhood rep.

Next -- objectives  Use baseline existing data on alcohol- related incidents to establish written objectives for the program.  Next plan strategies to increase awareness of alcohol-related problems, modify alcohol drinking behaviors, reduce the number of reported alcohol incidents on campus.

Implementation  Organize a campus-wide alcohol awareness day  Devise strategies with local bar owners to reduce excessive drinking  Any student with alcohol related issue must go for education program  Create posters/fliers for resp. drink  Train peer speakers to speak at Greek houses, dorms, etc  Plan non-alcohol events

Add on implementation  Wrote objectives for each of the strategies.  Wrote a timeline for implementation and who was responsible for what.

Rule of Sufficiency  Rule states that those strategies implemented must be sufficiently robust, or effective enough, that the stated objectives will have a reasonable chance of being met.  Do you think that the alcohol program at University has a reasonable chance of being met?

Rule of Sufficiency cont.  Would program have been robust enough if they were to hand out pamphlets and fliers on campus?

Responsibility III: Implement Health Education Strategies, Interventions, and Programs  Now Implement the programs –Most exciting part  Important questions to ask self about priority population: –What is their current level of understanding of issue –What will it take to get people to participate?

Important questions cont.  Does my population need financial assistance, childcare to participate?  What time of day should the program be offered?  What location/s are most convenient –May have gotten this info from needs assessment but may need to make sure

Implementing  As a general rule will want to use multiple intervention activities when planning and implementing activities.  What are examples?

Multiple implementations  TV, radio, newspapers, billboards, celebrities, etc.  Behavioral contracting, community events, contests, incentives, support groups, etc.

Implementation  Once everything is in place does not mean work is done.  May need to revise objectives or intervention activities if not having success.

Implementation  Step most likely to deal with population and public. –Always be professional

Responsibility IV: Conduct Evaluation and Research Related to Health Education  Critical that accurate evaluation be conducted to measure the success of programs.  Without evaluating don’t know if meeting objectives.

Evaluation  Make sure do a good job of evaluating if enjoy program or it could be cut. –Prove its worth –How might HE determine if program objectives have been met?  Seatbelt usage, radon,

Evaluation cont.  Developing and administering tests, questionnaires, observing behavior, tracking epidemiological data or other methods of data collection.  Can be sophisticated or simple

Evaluation  Once data is collected must be analyzed and interpreted.  Reports need to be developed and distributed to the appropriate parties. –Results should be used to improve and modify future efforts. –A profession moves forward and improves due to the quality of its research and the new info generated.

Entry level health educators  Should be able to read research, synthesize research results, and utilize research results to improve their practice.

Responsibility V: Administer Health Education Strategies, Interventions and Programs  Great deal of administration and coordination is needed to bring a health education program to fruition.  Good managements skills help –Knowledge of budgeting –Task assignments –Performance evaluation

Administer  HE must facilitate cooperation among personnel both within programs and between programs.  Within a public school system who would you need to coordinate?  Within a community setting who coordinate?

Responsibility VI: Serve as a Health Education Resource Person  Must have skills to access resources needed.  May be asked a variety of questions –What are questions that you all have been asked when people here that you are majoring in health?

Resource person  Staying abreast of National and Local media information is important – others will see you as the authority.  Knowing how to access data from CDC website important – knowing they have great epi data.

Responsibility VII: Communicate and Advocate for Health and Health Education  Communication is the primary tool of a health educator. –Should feel comfortable talking to large groups, small groups and the media. –Liason between technical health info from doctor and patient.

Advocate for Health Education  Follow and support legislation, rules, policies, and procedures that will enhance the health of the populations with which they work.  What are some of your pet projects that you like to support?

HE Advocates  For me I don’t like the machines in Junior Highs and High schools.

Technology  What is critical for the Health Educator to be familiar with?

Role Model  Should health educators be role models?  What is a role model?  More effective in their job if role Model?  Are you a role model now or hope to be one in the future?

Advanced Study in HE  Professional Associations  If become CHES certified need to have 15 hours of continuing education/yr. to maintain certification.

Master’s Degree Options  If going into teaching recommend that you teach before getting Masters. Difficult to find a school to hire you.  Master’s in Education  Master’s in Public Health  Master’s in Health Promotion and Education  Masters of Public Adminstration

Getting ready for Graduate School  What do you need to do?