Evaluating the Effectiveness of Face-to-Face and Web-Based Coalition-Building Training for Public Health Departments

Background:
Coalition University is an initiative that provides comprehensive, incremental, multi-disciplinary coalition-building training to public health professionals. In summer 2007, NACCHO partnered with MPP to make Coalition University available to its membership of public health departments. Evaluations from this abbreviated offering of Coalition University at NACCHO Annual revealed that expanded trainings were indicated.

Setting:
Training venue and internet

Population:
Health promotion professionals

Project Description:
Increasingly, health programs are being called upon to deliver more services with decreasing resources. Coalitions are an efficient and logical mechanism to formally combine community resources to optimize public health services.
Traditionally, local health departments are relied upon to provide health services for underserved populations and viewed as the central entity in community partnerships.
NACCHO and MPP are developing a model for effective health coalition training for public health departments. This partnership has resulted in three cohorts that will receive additional coalition-building training to complete the full Coalition University curriculum.
NACCHO and MPP will offer face-to-face and web-based sessions to provide training on developing and sustaining health coalitions. Feedback from training evaluations and surveys administered several months later will be used to inform the curriculum, faculty, and format of future trainings.

Results/Lessons Learned:
While both training methods were well-received, the majority of participants (64%) preferred face-to-face coalition training, citing the ability to interact with instructors and fellow participants. Incidentally, participants the topics presented were assigned the appropriate instructional setting.