The federally-funded Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Pipeline Training Program funds six sites to prepare diverse undergraduate students from underrepresented populations to enter health-related graduate training and workforce fields. Currently, programming and evaluation vary across sites, making it difficult to measure collective impact. The purpose of this project is to describe the dynamic process of developing a comprehensive set of competencies that is reflective of national priorities, practical training needs of students, and workforce demands.

Methods:

Program sites respond to federal funding requirements and employ didactic and experiential training, advising, and other mentoring and support activities to promising undergraduate scholars. Yet, there is a range of program designs (e.g., 10-week summer program; 1-4 year programs) and program foci per site given unique institutional circumstances and training needs. Thus, guided by a participatory approach, two methods were proposed to build consensus on competency development: (1) Stakeholder forums and (2) Modified Delphi technique.

Results:

Phase I currently includes stakeholder forums held with leadership (directors/coordinators across program sites; federal project officer; n=12). Sources guiding discussions include the national MCH Leadership Competencies; MCH Pipeline Funding Announcement; crosscutting program foci (addressed by all programs); and program-specific foci (given institutional expertise and training needs). Stakeholders collectively brainstorm key domain areas and corresponding skills/characteristics that could be used as competency items. Phase II will employ a modified-Delphi method technique where survey rounds will be administered to an Expert Panel (other program faculty, staff and partners at each site; n=50) to achieve consensus on salient competency items.

Conclusion:

Rigorous competency development methods must be participatory and balance academic/professional standards with practical considerations and lived experiences of current underrepresented undergraduate students. Future efforts will design objective and subjective evaluation methods to measure the final competencies, with the ultimate goal of establishing national metrics to guide undergraduate training that prepares a passionate and diverse MCH workforce across health disciplines.