Training Community Health Workers to Support Families of Children With Disabilities: Lessons Learned and Practical Recommendations

Abstract

Community health workers provide important services to support public health outcomes, particularly in low-income and low-resource settings. This practice note describes the training and supervision of community health workers for a program that aims to provide community-based support to families of children with disabilities in Lusaka, Zambia. Faculty from the United States partnered with a local organization to develop a multiday experiential training for supervisors, who then provided this training to volunteers in the community. An evaluation of supervisors and community health workers revealed that supervisors and community health workers gained significant knowledge and skills to work with children with disabilities. However, the attitude scales about children with disabilities did not show such robust change for the community health workers. A key challenge for this project was timing, as the training was completed just before COVID-19, leading to program implementation delays. Successes included increasing supervisor and community health workers’ knowledge and skills in working with children with disabilities. This training highlighted the importance of local partners who could provide additional context for the community’s needs and ongoing supervision for the community health workers to maintain program fidelity. This practice note adds to the limited knowledge base on developing additional support and services for children with disabilities and their families.