Overview

The stories of the Southeast Public Health Training Center (SPHTC) are not so much the stories of those trained, but more the stories of those whose job it is to strengthen the public health workforce. West Virginia, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky are six states in very different positions with regard to public health training infrastructure. KY, NC and SC have a long history of delivering training, while TN, WV and VA have increasing demands for workforce development and no clear way to deliver it. The regional coloration has fostered linkages and technical exchange that had never existed before and facilitated the sharing of resources.

• Helping the states to strengthen their capacity for workforce development through linking academic institutions to state and local public health agencies.
• Providing human, technical and financial resources to facilitate collaboration between the states
• Providing technical assistance
• Facilitating the sharing of training resources, so that no one needs to spend resources “reinventing the wheel”
• Strengthening systems that will allow for more training, especially preparedness training
• Fostering lifelong professional learning from continuing education to public health degrees
• Developing models for strengthening the public health workforce in rural areas

The Training Center is building on strong regional relationships around leadership and management training. The Training Center places special emphasis on public health nursing and rural public health issues.

• In Tennessee, the Training Center is partnering with East Tennessee State University to help them to develop their workforce development capacity to bring training to rural health departments in Eastern TN.
• In South Carolina they are delivering extensive statewide training in community assessment, public policy skills and understanding the roles of public health professionals. This was made possible through training center resources.
• In West Virginia, the Training Center is delivering ongoing management and leadership training for employees in six local health departments in the Northern panhandle of WV. The Training Center has also funded the development of a Public Health Nurse Specialist CEU program, that is currently being pilot tested.
• In Virginia, the Training Center is working with the state health department to develop a standardized orientation for all health department employees. The SPHTC is also facilitating a network of faculty from several of the state’s MPH programs. This group develops and delivers advanced level training for district public health directors.
• In North Carolina, the SPHTC has a special emphasis on the preparation, recruitment and retention of public health nurses. This initiative is bringing together several local public health nursing directors and community health nursing faculty from several BSN programs to standardize curricula, tie job descriptions to competencies and develop a standardized orientation process for nurses who new to health departments.
• Kentucky has been able to build on its success in public health training and in the development of a collaborate school of public health and provide technical expertise to the other partner states.