Pre-reading materials
Please find outlined below the pre-reading materials for this workshop:
- Competency based medical education
- Kern’s 6 steps – summary
- Curriculum planning and development
- Curricular change – how to succeed
- Verb list for SLOs
Pre-requisite items
Please find outlined below the pre-requisite item to be completed prior to attending the workshop:
Session outline
People with disabilities are among the world’s most vulnerable and least empowered groups. It has been estimated that at least 15% of the world’s population lives with a disability the majority in developing countries in conditions of poverty. Globally, the most common causes of disability include: chronic diseases, injuries; mental health problems; birth defects; malnutrition; and HIV/AIDS, TB and other communicable diseases. The prevalence of persons with disabilities is increasing due to factors such as population growth, increase in chronic health conditions, the ageing of populations, etc. Moreover, they are also subjected to stigma and discrimination with limited access to health care, education and livelihood opportunities.
Community-based rehabilitation (CBR) was first initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) following the International Conference on Primary Health Care in 1978 and the resulting Declaration of Alma-Ata. CBR was seen as a strategy to improve access to rehabilitation services for people with disabilities in developing countries; however, over the past 40 years its scope has considerably broadened. CBR is currently implemented in over 90 countries. People with disabilities (PWDs) continue to experience challenges with access to healthcare. Community-based rehabilitation (CBR) is an approach that advocates for equal opportunities and social inclusion of PWDs to enhance their quality of daily life. Healthcare professionals are crucial in the implementation of CBR
Despite the availability of evidence indicating remarkable benefits of CBR in different domains, the evaluation studies have revealed a wide range of challenges in the execution of CBR which have significantly threatened the implementation and the sustainability of CBR programs.
But CBR implementation in some regions is still based on the medical model of disability focussing on medical model on diagnosis and treatment. This approach doesn’t consider social issues or psychological aspect of a person. Therefore, healthcare professionals who are seen as experts, often fail in rendering holistic care by not addressing the opinions and concerns of PWDs. Therefore, the role of a healthcare professional becomes very critical in the implementation of CBR. The healthcare professional needs to be trained in CBR and it’s components and principles as these are the necessary core competencies when combined with professional knowledge can improve the implementation of CBR thereby improving the quality of life of the Persons with disabilities under their care.
However, there is an unmet need to modify the disability curriculum currently based on the medical model to include Community- based rehabilitation and Inclusive Development as a holistic curriculum keeping in mind the contextual factors and the country’s policy towards disability. This workshop is mainly aimed in developing a competency-based curriculum for community-based rehabilitation, its principles and components as has been suggested by the WHO for medical professionals.
The curriculum development will use Kern’s six steps approach which are (i) problem identification and general needs assessment, (ii) targeted needs assessment, (iii) goals and objectives, (iv) educational strategies, (v) implementation and (vi) feedback and evaluation
The workshop will go through each of these steps by a series of lecture, interaction, examples, group activity and reflective learnings
Learning outcomes
- To understand CBR, components and principles programmes in line with the WHO CBR Joint Position Paper and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
- To be able to promote CBR as a strategy for community-based inclusive development to assist in the mainstreaming of disability in development initiatives, and in particular, to reduce poverty.
- To understand the terms in learning like “Curriculum”, “Competency”, “Domains of learning”, “Specific learning objectives”, “Integration”, “Assessment”, “Teaching Learning Methods,” “Evaluation”
- To be understand the Six steps of Kern’s Approach for curricular development
- Step 1: Problem Identification
- Identify and characterize the health care problem (in this case CBR) that will be addressed by the curriculum, how it is currently being addressed, and how it should be addressed.
- Step 2: Needs Assessment of Targeted Learners
- A needs assessment of targeted learners (medical/ nursing students) is a process by which curriculum developers identify the differences between the ideal and the actual characteristics of the targeted learner group and between the ideal and actual characteristics of their environment.
- Step 3: Goals and Objectives
- Goals and objectives will be used for:
- Directing the choice of curricular content
- Suggesting what learning methods will be most effective to Enable evaluation of learners and the curriculum
- Suggest what evaluation methods are appropriate
- Clearly communicate to others what the curriculum addresses and hopes to achieve.
- Goals and objectives will be used for:
- Step 4: Educational Strategies
- Develop the educational strategies by which the curricular objectives will be achieved. Educational strategies involve both content and methods.
- Provide the means by which a curriculum’s objectives are achieved
- Step 5: Implementation
- The curriculum developer must chalk out a plan with available resources, political and financial support, and administrative strategies to successfully implement the curriculum.
- Step 6: Evaluation and Feedback
- Step 1: Problem Identification
- To develop a Competency Based Curriculum for Community Based rehabilitation for health care professionals which is of international standards and includes the conceptual and contextual factors into consideration which can improve their degree of flexibility and innovative thinking and possess a wide range of management, practice, teaching, and learning skills
- To build the Capacity in curriculum development for training of health care professionals in turn will result in augmenting CBR for PWDs in their professional practice which are not only cost-effective, but will deliver encouraging results in increasing independence; enhancing mobility, improving communication skills; augmenting educational/vocational opportunities; influencing community attitudes positively; and in facilitating social inclusion, of persons with disability.
- To have a core group of interested experts which can take the agenda of introduction of CBR Curriculum forward in their universities and also guide the curriculum development in other interested universities as a part of follow-up of this workshop
Target audience
This is specifically intended for teachers from medical schools and universities from the following sectors
- Health Care Professionals teaching rehabilitation
- Social workers / Social Sector working with persons with disability
- Nurses who are teaching in universities
- Students – Undergraduate / Postgraduate
- Civil Society organisations / Government Organisations working with persons with disability conducting or planning training courses in CBR
This workshop can be attended by anyone who feels that disability and community-based rehabilitation as a core competency which has to be included in medical education.