EDUCATIONAL
SESSIONS
The Healthy Homes
project was structured to include a series of educational sessions to instruct
mothers on the five main topics that were selected by the community to improve the health of young children in the district of El Tallan; Diarrhea Illnesses, Respiratory Infections and Nutrition and Early Childhood
Development. These topics were presented
during a series of four once-monthly sessions in September, October, and November
of 2013 and January of 2014.
Eight volunteer community
health promoters agreed to participate in the execution of the project. Health promoters were paired up for mutual
support and encouragement, and each pair was assigned to present one of the four
topics covered during one of the educational sessions.
I worked directly with each pair to develop a session plan for presenting each topic, and we created visual tools and handouts for the sessions. Each session plan included a presentation of information, real-life examples and demonstrations, and opportunities for participants to practice new behaviors and demonstrate knowledge. At the end of session, I led a discussion of ways to integrate the newly learned practices into the home and expectations of the upcoming house visit. The sessions were designed to not only encourage the adoption of healthy practices among caregivers of small children, but also address the barriers to change previously expressed by mothers, and reported by health center staff or by the health promoters.
Following the educational sessions, each participating family received a house visit from one of the community health promoters who had been assigned to the family. The house visits were intended to monitor the progress of the mother to adopt new behaviors and reinforce the knowledge gained during the educational sessions. The health promoters were provided monitoring forms that I created according to the learning objectives of the educational sessions, and they received training on conducting house visits from the health center staff.
I worked directly with each pair to develop a session plan for presenting each topic, and we created visual tools and handouts for the sessions. Each session plan included a presentation of information, real-life examples and demonstrations, and opportunities for participants to practice new behaviors and demonstrate knowledge. At the end of session, I led a discussion of ways to integrate the newly learned practices into the home and expectations of the upcoming house visit. The sessions were designed to not only encourage the adoption of healthy practices among caregivers of small children, but also address the barriers to change previously expressed by mothers, and reported by health center staff or by the health promoters.
Following the educational sessions, each participating family received a house visit from one of the community health promoters who had been assigned to the family. The house visits were intended to monitor the progress of the mother to adopt new behaviors and reinforce the knowledge gained during the educational sessions. The health promoters were provided monitoring forms that I created according to the learning objectives of the educational sessions, and they received training on conducting house visits from the health center staff.
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(Original group of health promoters for the district of El Tallan)
Please continue
reading to find out more about the four educational sessions:
