[NEW RESOURCE] Supporting Vaccination: A Toolkit For Community Health Workers
A DIGITAL TRAINING TO EXPAND UNDERSTANDING AND UPTAKE OF VACCINATIONS AROUND THE WORLD
As trusted caregivers around the world, community health workers (CHWs) are vital to global vaccination efforts. However, they often face barriers like misinformation about vaccines, inadequate educational resources, and limited time for training. Digital Medic has created a free digital toolkit to help address these challenges and equip CHWs with the knowledge and communication strategies to increase vaccine uptake around the world.
The Supporting Vaccination toolkit contains videos and other mobile-friendly materials that CHWs can review at their convenience. We need your help to get this resource to as many CHWs as possible. In this social media kit, we share suggested posts and visuals you can use to share the toolkit with your networks. You can also share any posts from our Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram pages. The toolkit and social media posts are currently available in English, with additional languages coming soon.
THE GAP
Current barriers to effective vaccine outreach for CHWs include:
- Strong feelings of mistrust around vaccines in the community
- Lack of materials to reference for educating people in the community
- Lack of training opportunities related to vaccination
- Perception of few trusted sources for reliable health information
- Lack of scientific knowledge about coronavirus, vaccines, side effects and other common concerns
- Limited time
- Personal fears about vaccination
With these challenges in mind, the Supporting Vaccination toolkit is designed to equip a global audience of CHWs with the knowledge and confidence to educate communities about the importance of vaccination, and to guide people through the vaccination process.
DIGITAL MEDIC'S APPROACH
Digital Medic's learning framework centers the CHW experience, connecting their existing knowledge and expertise to broader social change. We worked with an advisory group of CHWs to understand their needs and ensure all materials are relevant and actionable in their day-to-day work. While the toolkit specifically mentions COVID-19, the materials are largely applicable for other immunization training needs as well.
DISEMMINATION
The toolkit aims to provide learners with:
- A clear understanding of how viruses and vaccines function
- Communication methods for educating others about the benefits of vaccination and countering vaccine misinformation, with empathy at the core
- An ability to determine individuals’ vaccination readiness and to encourage concurrent prevention strategies.
The full training is available to view and download throughthe website and the Digital Medic mobile app. Accessing course content through the Digital Medic mobile app is recommended in settings with limited data and internet connectivity. All videos are also available to view on YouTube.
USING THE TOOLKIT
The toolkit contains 10 animated videos, also available as audio-only files. It also includes a complementary set of static graphics, all shareable via mobile chat platforms such as WhatsApp. Health workers can access and revisit the materials in any order, at any time. A subset of the content is also appropriate for CHWs to share with their communities as teaching tools. In total, it should take about 100 minutes to review the materials.
Accessing course content through the Digital Medic mobile app for Google Play or the App Store is recommended in settings with limited data and internet connectivity. All content is freely available under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0.
To explore the toolkit and find out more click here.