Health at KRC - education, training and research November 16, 2010

Hi John

Nikki and I have been discussing ways to make it easier for you, and everyone, to find appropriate project details that you need at dadamac.net. Obviously if you know exactly what you want it is easy because you can use the search box. However sometimes it's not that simple, and people want the system to be a bit more helpful. This is particularly true if someone wants to see a cluster of initiatives around a theme, rather than one particular project.

Tagging spring clean - health intiatives

With this in mind we intend to spring-clean the tagging system we have been using.  We are currently looking at health initiatives, and how they fit under the classifications of

• research
  
• post-graduate level studies
• other adult education and training
• local service delivery
  

Later we will look at other content streams such as permaculture, digital technologies, education, welfare, livelihoods etc - but we will start with health.

Getting started

Here are some first thoughts for your information and consideration.  Main feedback we need is any omissions, or wrong information.

By the way, we are using other tags as well. If you have any particular favourite tags that you would like us to use in addition to these, please let us know.

Research

We intend to use the research tag for various kinds of research, ranging from formal collaborative research programmes (with university departments and other organisations) to data collected for your own use. We will also use it to flag up funding opportunities that we have found that we would be interested to collaborate on. These are what come immediately to mind:

Sickle Cell - funding opportunity  UK International Health Links Funding Scheme (IHLFS) - collaboration opportunity with Dadamac / Fantsuam FoundationSeptember 27, 2010 - Deadline December 31st

Sickle Cell Cohort Study (in connection with the screening programme for the under-fives) - I think Nikki has written this up on her blog.

Data collection - We think you are doing other data collection while doing local health (and welfare) service delivery. Most of the health initiatives are covered in Nikki's blogs and the project write-ups  - but the descriptive emphasis has been on service delivery rather than research:

• Are you collecting data during any of the health programmes on HIV/AIDS, TB, or the maternity clinic?
• We remember mention of measuring the forearms of children as a record of stunted growth in one of the UK-Nigeria team meetings - was that in one of the feeding programmes for orphans and vulnerable children?

It occurs to me that you also have potential rich informal data streams that people could mine (if resources were available to do so).  I think for instance of all you get involved in on a day-to-day basis related to formal and informal care in the community - traffic accident victims,  the continual impact of common maladies like malaria and diarrhea related illnesses, your connections to the nursing college and the clinic in Kaduna, and local hospitals, the eye inspections for cataract and eye tests for glasses etc. Maybe we need to write some of these up in ways that outsiders would be able to recognise as potential collaborative research projects.

The initial development work that we did with Professor Dick Heller on the possibility of establishing the "people's uni" and on preparing and delivering the two pilot courses was all research and development. (NB As well as fitting under the content stream of health it is also relevant under the content stream of education: distance-education). http://www.dadamac.net/projects/education-and-training/peoplesuni

Post-graduate level study opportunities

I am trying to pull together the learning opportunities that are supported at post-graduate level. I am not thinking of formal course at this time, rather I am thinking of opportunities you make available for self-directed learners who are post-graduates.

I have a vague memory of some people (with their own laptops) who were coming to KRC to access digitised medical journals, but I don't recall details.

The "people's uni" online courses are for medical professionals. Am I right in thinking that they are therefore post-graduate level? I think you made known locally the opportunities to study those courses.  Am I right in thinking that some "people's uni" students accessed the courses via KRC?

I am also thinking of the professional development opportunities that post-graduate-level staff enjoy. This came through so strongly during Dadmac Day 2010.

Record keeping and learner profiles

At some point I want to formalise some of these experiences of informal professional development by creating learner profiles (records of our learning journeys - what we are planning and how far we have got etc.) I may start off by doing one for myself, and then, if it seems useful I'll encourage others to do something similar. 

Obviously the learner profiles  would want to complement anything that is already being done by Kelechi regarding records of people taking formal courses (not a  problem in my case as all my learning is non-formal).

I think my starting point will be a discussion with Philip Butler. He advises people in London University about using Moodle. (He does really interesting creative stuff. If there was a Philip Butler fan club I would be an active member - if ever I get an opportunity to hear him talk about his latest work I try to be there). He has recently been demonstrating the Moodle-based system of learner profiling in use at Lewisham College. (If it's open source and it's "good enough for them" I'm thinking it might well be worth a "serious second glance" from us.)  The big difference is that the Lewisham College students are on taught courses, not self directed learning, but I think they also track what they do informally to support their studies, and that is the bit we would want to use.

Other adult education and training

This includes all adult education and training that you enable, except for post-graduate level. I don't call it higher or tertiary, because I recognise that some of the adults who receive training through the KRC may not have had the opportunity to complete secondary education, or may not even have completed primary education. These are health examples that I have in mind:

Sickle cell  - you do a lot a awareness training with parents. I think you also get involved in staff training (maybe some is at post-grad level).

HIV/AIDS - again staff training, and healtht/hygiene and nutrition training for people living with HIV/AIDS

Others?

Local service delivery emphasised previously

I'm not going over all those projects now, as we seem to  have emphasised local service delivery in most of the write-ups so far at www.dadamac.net. Just re-reading what is written above generates a good overview of health service delivery, because everything mentioned above (except for "people's uni") was initiated through response to local demand - hence the service provision coming into being.

Missing information on education, training and research

As Nikki and I have thought about the initiatives being served through the KRC (and re-tagging our write-ups) we realise that we have in fact written very little about education and training (and research). Given the way that ongoing staff training is one of the big benefits that people in have in working on your projects it is crazy that we have not focussed on it in any way in our write-ups. Ongoing personal development  opportunities for everyone are so ingrained that we take them for granted. However, we do need to make this education and training provision more visible, so that newcomers get a clearer idea of all that is offered. I am thinking of newcomers to the  physical home of Dadamac in Nigeria at the KRC and also of newcomers to our "online home" on the Internet at www.dadamac.net

(Writing up all that information will be another 'nice little job to be getting on with' - and no-one really with time to do it, so it won;t happen immediately -  but Nikki and I will make a start, and hope for more helpers before too long, and gradually it will get done).

Over to you
 
No need for detailed feedback - except for anything urgent that we've missed out or got wrong. We hope you will like the new structure, which we feel will be a better reflection of how things are, and what should be more visible, as expressed through the discussions at Dadamac Day. 

Pam

Posted to  Dadamac's Posterous by Pamela McLean

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