Helping Health Workers Learn: A Book of Methods, Aids, and Ideas for Instructors at the Village Level - Softcover

David Werner; Bill Bower

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0942364104 ISBN 13: 9780942364101

Publisher: Hesperian Health Guides, 2012

Synopsis

This 2012 updated reprint of Helping Health Workers Learn ensures that the book continues to be an accurate companion to Where There Is No Doctor, with updated references, new contact information for recommended organizations and materials, and changes to some of the appropriate technologies. All Hesperian books are regularly updated and reprinted to reflect accurate medical information.

Helping Health Workers Learn is an indispensable resource for all health educators. This heavily illustrated book shows how to make health education engaging and effective, while emphasizing a people-centered approach to care. It also presents strategies for effective community involvement through participatory education. Topics include

• activities for mothers and children
• tips for using theater, flannel-boards, and other techniques
• strategies for producing low-cost teaching aids
• and how to build on a community's traditions, experiences, and strengths

About this title

About the Author:

David Werner was a co-founder of the Hesperian Foundation, and is currently co-founder and director of HealthWrights, and a visiting professor at Boston University International School of Public Health. A biologist and educator by training, he has worked as a health activist for the past 40 years in village health care, community-based rehabilitation, and "Child-to-Child" health initiatives in the Third World, mainly Mexico.

Werner has worked in more than 50 countries helping to facilitate health workshops and training programs, and has been a consultant for UNICEF, WHO, UNDP, and the Peace Corps. He has received awards and/or fellowships from the World Health Organization, the American Pediatric Association, the American Medical Writers Association, and the MacArthur Foundation.
Bill L. Bower, M.P.H. is Director of Education and Training at the Charles P. Felton National Tuberculosis Center at Harlem Hospital, and Assistant Clinical Professor at the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.

He worked with international health programs for over 20 years in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, focusing on the training of lay health workers, clinicians, and program managers. In the US, he has directed TB education and training efforts for 12 years as a Research Scientist for the New York City Department of Health Bureau of Tuberculosis Control and with the Charles P. Felton National Tuberculosis Center, helping to form the Northeastern Regional Training and Medical Consultation Consortium, serving 20 state and city tuberculosis control programs.

Mr. Bower has also worked with the education and training efforts of the MTCT-Plus Initiative of the Mailman School of Public Health, launching HIV/AIDS care treatment programs in 13 sites in sub-Saharan Africa and Thailand.

Review:

The health workers of the title are not doctors and nurses, but village health workers - laypeople with a special interest in and calling for working with health problems, laypeople who are natural helpers. But there is much in this volume for professional health workers to learn. Helping Health Workers Learn is one of the few books on health education that face up to this major problem: Many health education programs increase layfolks' dependence on all-powerful professionals and undermine people's sense of their own abilities to take care of them selves. The authors clearly recognize that one of the biggest obstacles to self responsibility in health is the unwillingness of professionals to let go of control. --Tom Ferguson, MD Self Care Archives

Hesperian materials are invaluable, particularly when working at the community level. Though Helen Keller Worldwide uses a number of Hesperian publications, I feel Helping Health Workers Learn and Where There Is No Doctor are absolutely essential for public health organizations working in countries with limited infrastructure. We at Helen Keller Worldwide feel a strong connection with the Hesperian approach of designing health education and intervention from the point of view of the recipient, thereby guaranteeing community involvement and program efficiency. --Chad MacArthur, MPH, MEd, Director of Training and Community Education Helen Keller Worldwide

About this edition

• Publisher: Hesperian Health Guides
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0942364104
• ISBN 13: 9780942364101
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 640