My
co-worker, Megan, and I recently returned from the beautiful campus of Stanford
University in Palo Alto, California, where we trained onsite for the Stanford
University Self-Management Programs T-Trainer Apprenticeship.
In case
you’re not familiar with this curriculum, Dr. Kate Lorig, Director of the Stanford
Patient Education Research Center and Professor of Medicine at Stanford School
of Medicine, developed a number of self-management programs for people with
chronic health problems. All of these evidence-based programs help people gain
self-confidence to better manage their health problems on a day-to-day basis.
Already
being Master Trainers for these programs, Megan and I have trained many Program
Leaders over the years. We had to apply to become T-Trainers and get accepted
from Stanford. Imagine our excitement when we were selected to lead the November
Master Training at Stanford! Our apprenticeship week on campus was under the
supervision of Certifying T-Trainer Sonia Alvarez. The class of twenty-four
students for the week came from a variety of professions all over the United
States. We even had three people in our class who flew all the way from Taiwan.
The training
week consisted of activities to help our group of twenty-four learn the program
and effectively train others. The workshop activities we did were identical to
the activities taught to people with chronic diseases. Trainees act like people
in the community who have taken the class so they can experience it firsthand
like a community member. There were two different opportunities to practice
teach the program under our guidance.
It was a
great learning experience and we are now T-Trainers. What this means is that we
can conduct Master Trainings for other organizations. Those Master Trainers could
train Program Leaders how to deliver the program correctly to their communities.
If you have
any further questions about how we could work with your organization for this
program or any other programs that PTI offers, please send me an email and I’d
be happy to get back with you.
Have a
wonderful holiday season.
Carla
