Design and delivery of a competency-based public health workforce training curriculum

The Foundations for Local Public Health Practice course is a 45-hour awareness level training that offers a cross-disciplinary perspective and approach to local public health practice in terms of the three core functions and ten essential services. The course is designed to provide a competency-based training curriculum for the public health workforce delivered through a combination of classroom, distance learning sessions and interactive webinars. The use of distance learning and webinar technology is intended to improve access for public health workers from different parts of the state; and to reduce travel expenses and time out of work. The audience for this course includes those new to the job and those who want to further advance their knowledge and skills from state, regional, and local perspective. Certificates of completion with contact hours are issued after participants finish all eighteen sessions and complete the required pre- and post-tests and evaluations for each session. The Foundations evaluation plan collected a combination of quantitative and qualitative data to assess the course design, instructors' teaching skills, knowledge gain and satisfaction with individual sessions and the overall course. Pre- and post-session self-administered evaluation forms were collected from all sessions over the four month period. Based on the evaluation findings, we drew a number of conclusions and developed recommendations for next steps to improve the Foundations course for future delivery, including revisions in the delivery format. In addition, statistically significant improvements in knowledge from pre to post test for most of the course's eighteen sessions.