Promoting healthy homes through a collaborative webinar training series

The CT Healthy Homes Webinar Series is a collaborative project between the CT-RI PHTC and the CT Healthy Homes Initiative (CTHHI). The CT-RI PHTC has been a member of the CTHHI since December 2010 and sits on the Workforce Development Workgroup. CHHI is lead by the CT Department of Public Health (CT DPH) and has 31 organizational members. In 2010-11, CHHI conducted a Healthy Homes strategic planning process. One of the strategic goals is to “Develop a healthy homes workforce that has comprehensive knowledge of home hazards and interventions.” To help meet this goal, CT-RI PHTC has produced a series of 10 webinars on a wide variety of healthy homes topics, in close collaboration with CHHI members. The primary target audience is governmental public health, however audience members and webinar presenters have included many public health partners, including private industry. Webinars focus on providing busy practitioners with new knowledge, policy updates and resources for the field. Webinars are recorded and later posted as an on-demand course on TRAIN, in partnership with CT DPH. Webinars are pre-approved for CHES and NEHA credits; when space is available they are open nationally. Webinar presentations are shared with attendees following the event. Evaluation: For all ten programs, the average perceived ability to perform the learning objective before the training was 2.89 and following the program was 3.95, with an average change of 1.09 on a scale of 5, with 5 as most proficient; 88% said they intend to use training to change their practice.