English

The Department of Health Systems and Services has developed this program to enable the new advisors to have a thorough understanding of the Organization's technical cooperation priorities and to facilitate dialogue and collaboration between headquarters and country offices.

The purpose of the program is to provide opportunities to:

-            Learn and exchange information about PAHO's mission, main mandates, and technical cooperation strategy.

-            Get to know the mission of the HSS Department and its technical units.

-            Present priorities for cooperation and exchange with the technical teams of each of the Department's technical units.

-            Review documents, guides, and priority courses.

-            Exchange strategies, modalities, and priorities in country cooperation.

-            Promote inter-programmatic work within the department and with priority initiatives of the Organization.

Audience: HSS regional advisors, national advisors, with a special focus on those recently incorporated into country offices.

Hybrid modality: Weekly 90-minute meetings via Zoom and the Virtual Campus Classroom (VCPH) to review materials and exchange through forums.

12 synchronous sessions held on Wednesdays from 10:00 a.m -11:30 a.m. WDC (EDT)

Start date: Wednesday, March 12.

End date: Wednesday, May 28.

The Virtual Campus for Public Health (VCPH) is a special program of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). It operates through a decentralized network comprising individuals, institutions, and organizations that share open educational resources addressing public health issues relevant to the region, utilizing information and communication technologies. The VCPH coordinates with the different technical areas of PAHO to develop regional educational proposals, and promotes the establishment of local networks that support the development of educational proposals aligned with technical cooperation that are coordinated through the country nodes.

Since its inception in 2003, the VCPH has progressively enhanced its technological and educational platform under the principles of accessibility and quality. This enabled an effective response during the COVID-19 pandemic and a sustained increase in virtual educational offerings across different modalities, reaching more than 3 million users in the first quarter of 2024.

This series of tutor training seminars forms an integral part of the VCPH’s strategy to enhance teaching capacities for the management of virtual courses that support the PAHO’s agenda for technical cooperation.

Purpose of the seminar series:

• To enhance the competencies and technical capacities of the teaching teams involved in VCPH courses, particularly in virtual tutoring. This also aims to strengthen the quality of the educational proposals in the Moodle Classrooms of the Virtual Campus.
• Understanding the fundamental challenges of virtual teaching and the role of the tutor, enabling participants to adapt and/or modify their practices to provide effective tutoring.
• Integrating resources and activities (particularly forums and assignments) available within the VCPH Virtual Classroom, as teaching and assessment tools, to create meaningful learning experiences and provide continuous support to course participants.
• Analyzing work/collaboration patterns between the teaching teams and the support provided by the technical team of the VCPH, to identify and share experiences and best practices among tutors involved in the courses.

Learning Objectives:
In this training initiative, participants will be able to:

• Recognize the Virtual Campus for Public Health (VCPH) as a strategy for PAHO's technical cooperation.
• Reflect on the role of the tutor and the unique characteristics of teaching within virtual learning environments.
• Acquire knowledge and skills in key aspects of effective tutoring.
• Explore the VCPH virtual classroom, including its activities and resources.
• Discuss the various types of courses offered by the VCPH.
• Utilize basic tools for monitoring and evaluation of participants in VCPH courses.
• Strengthen their teaching practices through the exchange of experiences with peers and the incorporation of new strategies.

Recipients:

• Teaching teams that  will undertake tutoring responsibilities in regional courses and country nodes in the VCPH.
• Coordinators of existing courses within the VCPH or those planning to develop courses in the near future.
• Course coordinators interested in learning more about the role of tutors and aiming to strengthen the competencies of their tutor teams.
• Virtual tutors seeking to strengthen their skills in virtual teaching.

Workload and dedication:
Participants will be required to commit approximately 15 hours in total. This will be distributed in three synchronous Zoom sessions (of 1 hour and 30 minutes each), and 10 hours for asynchronous activities within the virtual classroom.

Structure of the training initiative:
The series of training seminars is organized under a modular structure made up of a space for introduction to the course and familiarization with the virtual classroom and three Learning Modules. The development proposes a progressive advance from familiarization to the Campus, the analysis of the role of tutor, to experimentation with the different resources in Moodle.

It will adopt a hybrid modality, blending synchronous sessions with asynchronous activities to foster autonomous learning in the virtual classroom. There will be 3 synchronous virtual Zoom sessions of 1 hour and a half each. During the sessions, presentations will be made by consultants who provide support and follow-up to the VCPH courses, by the VCPH team, and tools of the Virtual Classroom platform (Moodle) will be shown. These sessions will also include practice opportunities, discussions, and brief workshop-style activities to enhance engagement and participation.

Participants will also have access to a virtual classroom, where they will find all the material, recordings of the sessions, and links, and where they will develop practical activities.

This course is available to selected participants.

Meeting the goals of the Immunization Agenda 2030 requires, among other things, to focus on monitoring vaccine safety and vaccination to ensure a high-quality supply chain and highly effective vaccines linked to a primary care-based service delivery system.
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has required the quick deployment of vaccines under emergency authorization, it is imperative to focus on vaccine safety measures, including the surveillance of Events Supposedly Attributable to Vaccination or Immunization (ESAVI).
An ESAVI is defined as an event supposedly attributable to vaccination or immunization (ESAVI) is defined as any untoward medical occurrence which follows immunization, and which does not necessarily have a causal relationship with the vaccination process or the vaccine. The adverse event may be any unfavorable or unintended sign, abnormal laboratory finding, symptom, or disease.
This online course will provide you with the knowledge and skills necessary for the correct development of the ESAVI surveillance cycle, allowing the compilation of useful information on the emergence of adverse events. This information will be used by teams of professionals at the national and regional levels in order to minimize the occurrence of these events and their impact on the population.

The course consists of ten modules, including information on a broad range of topics, as well as practical activities and the analysis of a case study throughout the course.

Purpose

The purpose of this course is to present technical regional standards for surveillance of events supposedly attributable to vaccination or immunization to guide case management, generate reliable information, guarantee the permanent monitoring of vaccine safety and answer promptly and objectively to the demands of the public.

Furthermore, this course is aimed at strengthening ESAVI surveillance in the region by training healthcare personnel in the basic principles and standardized practices of the ESAVI surveillance cycle across all national teams.

Goals

1. Identify the essential components of a safe vaccination system.
2. Explain the scope and definition of an event supposedly attributable to vaccination or immunization.
3. Recognize the models and principles of ESAVI surveillance.
4. Describe the steps to implement the ESAVI surveillance system.
5. Identify the key factors in ESAVI detection, reporting, and investigation.
6. Identify the key elements of data management and indicators for monitoring ESAVI.
7. Analyze the key elements of an ESAVI causality assessment.
8. Review the actions and response to ESAVI reporting and final case classification.
9. Recognize the necessary elements for correct risk communication.

Target Audience

This course is intended for professionals working in Health Ministries, Regulatory Agencies, Epidemiology Departments, Vaccine Safety National Committees and local healthcare staff with the aim of guiding them in adverse events surveillance, identification, reporting, analysis and communication.

Certified Hours

An estimated 15 hours are required in order to complete the course.

Course Modality

The course is available at PAHO’s Virtual Campus for Public Health (VCPH). Since this is a self-paced course, participants can take it at their own pace. Participants will need between 30 to 120 minutes to complete each module, depending on the participant’s previous knowledge on the topic. In sum, including the total estimated minutes per module, document review, activities and tests, the course is assigned 15 hours of seating time.

Skills

This course will allow you to develop skills related to the management and shared use of information and documentation about immunization, with a rigorous, collaborative and adaptable approach to decision-making in various areas, geared towards achieving the course goals.

Course Structure

The course is organized around a modular structure, allowing participants to advance progressively through the cycle of ESAVI surveillance. However, nonlinear progression is also allowed. The program is made up of an introductory clip, a toolbox, ten modules and a final assessment.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health challenges are becoming the number one cause of years-lived with disability worldwide. Depression, one of the most prevalent and costly conditions in our society, affects over 400 million people globally, and ranks as the single largest contributor to global disability at 7.5% of all years lived with disability in 2015. When mental health challenges co-occur with other chronic medical conditions, there is a higher morbidity and cost to the healthcare system. Even though the vast majority of “People with Lived Experience” (PWLE) can be handled early and effectively in a primary care setting, more than half of individuals do not receive help.

The stigmatization of people living with mental health challenges and substance use disorders is all too common, even within healthcare environments. People with lived experiences of mental health challenges, including substance use problems, often report feeling devalued, dismissed, and dehumanized by many of the healthcare professionals with whom they come into contact. Stigma in healthcare settings can manifest in subtle and largely unintended ways. Providers feel that their efforts result in no measurable change, are commonly less optimistic about treatment adherence and outcomes, refer PWLE more frequently to specialty services, delaying early intervention, and tend to attribute physical illnesses to the mental health diagnosis. Such practices have resulted in poor patient care, which increases morbidity and mortality within this vulnerable population.

Stigma can be related to a lack of skills and confidence when working with PWLE. Furthermore, healthcare providers lack awareness of their own prejudices and have an incomplete understanding of how important they are in the process of recovery (Knaak & Patten, 2016). Thus, mental health-related stigma remains a significant barrier to effective treatment and recovery. To address this growing public health issue, PAHO formed a partnership with the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) to address stigma at the clinical level.

The Understanding Stigma (US) and Strengthening Cognitive Behavioral Interpersonal Skills (CBIS) program combines two evidenced-based MHCC complementary stigma-reduction programs, which was piloted across the English-speaking Caribbean countries and territories in 2021.

Understanding Stigma is a self-directed web-based program designed to provide professionals with an opportunity to recognize attitudes and behaviors that could potentially lead to stigma, its impact on PWLE, and practical approaches to address some of its challenges. The Cognitive Behavioral Interpersonal Skills program is a tutor facilitated skills building component designed to reduce providers’ sense of helplessness and anxiety, which can lead to clinical distancing when caring for PWLE.

Educational approach 

The educational methodology will consist of a blended, online self-learning and tutor-guided approach for primary healthcare providers. Didactic sessions are balanced with integrated discussion and interactive activities throughout to facilitate an active and participatory learning environment, accessible and engaging for learners. A core element of the program is social contact with PWLE (First Voice videos), in which they share their experience living with mental health challenges and their recovery journey. This approach allows for an improved meaningful learning linked to practical performance.

Course purpose

The purpose of this program is to reduce mental health related stigma and improve clinical and practice management skills among primary care providers when working with individuals experiencing mental health challenges.

Main objective

After this course, participants will have a better understanding of mental health-related stigma, its impact, how to reduce it, and how a structured training program that targets improved practitioners’ knowledge, management skills and confidence when caring for this population group, leads to diminished social distance and stigmatization.

Audience

The course has been tailored for participants who fulfill the following criteria: 

• Primary care practitioners from English-speaking Caribbean countries, who are working as: MD general practitioners, specialized nurse practitioners, clinical psychologists and other mental health care providers directly involved in PWLE care.
  • Two or more years of clinical working experience in health care (preferably in mental health services).
  • Interested in enhancing their capacity to understand stigma and implicit biases when treating mental health patients within their Primary Health Care networks.
  • Have the support of the Ministry of Health /Supervising Body and from their own institutional work supervisors.

Duration / Workload

This course will be delivered virtually via PAHO’s Virtual Campus for Public Health.

The 16-week tutor-led course will be offered in English to groups of 60 -100 primary health care providers (maximum) from across the English-speaking Caribbean countries and territories. The course will have a duration of 60 hours and it will take place from August 15 until November 30, 2022.

Trainees will also commit to participate in individual and group work that will require: 

• Approximately three to four hours a week of work in different synchronous and asynchronous activities, as well as turning in written assignments and course work in a timely manner.
  • The weekly 3-4 hours would include the “Individual Work” requirement between sessions (action period) in which you are asked to practice (in-office) with your own clients the skills you learned.
  • While participation schedules are flexible, the overall agenda of the course activities must be met.
    • The course lasts 16 weeks in total, with individual and group activities, as well as orientation and support from a course tutor consultant.
    • Training modules and content might be adjusted according to the needs.

Course structure

Understanding Stigma online self-learning
Module 1: Raising awareness
Module 2: Impact of stigma
Module 3: Challenging stigma and discrimination
Strengthening Cognitive Behavioral Interpersonal Skills
Module 4: Introduction to CBIS program
Module 5: Problem List & Action Plan care pathway
Module 6: Diagnostic Assessment Interview (DAI) care pathway
Module 7: Self- Assessment Questionnaire care pathway

Evaluation and certification of participants

Healthcare providers will be evaluated in multiple ways. Active participation to classes will be considered, while preparatory reading and understanding of presented material will be directly assessed through quizzes and individual and group assignments. Participants will also need to submit original work around the file of “Understanding Stigma and Strengthening Cognitive Behavioral Interpersonal Skills”.

Participants will work alone and together in groups to complete their weekly work assignments and final group project.

Participants who successfully obtain a passing grade of 80% of the course modules assignments and participation in seven modules, will be able to download their course completion certificate issued by the Pan American Health Organization.

Introduction to the course

In recent decades, immunization programs have faced several challenges. During the introduction and deployment of COVID-19 vaccination, it became clear that health personnel had many questions about vaccine safety, equity, and delivery processes. These questions arise in a context where misinformation abounds, and health workers must address them. To increase confidence in vaccination, it is necessary for all health workers to improve their basic knowledge on vaccine development and on best practices in immunization, especially in relation to the benefits and safety of vaccines. This course “Basic Concepts in Immunization for Health Workers” is an introduction to the main concepts and basic principles of vaccines and immunization, including the types of vaccines available, their application throughout the life course and in special situations such as emergencies.

Purpose

The purpose of the course is to strengthen the fundamental knowledge of health workers on immunization and vaccines, and to provide essential information that will allow them to act as active promoters of the immunization program.

Competencies

The course provides an opportunity for participants to:

• Review the process of vaccine development and effectiveness.
• Review information on the functioning of the immune system and the categorization of vaccines according to their type, effectiveness and mode of administration.
• Consider essential information on the event surveillance system for vaccine safety, in order to understand expectations when faced with an Event Supposedly Attributable to Vaccination or Immunization (ESAVI).
• Tailor information on vaccines and vaccination by making it accessible to each community and individual, identifying factors that may generate reluctance or biases towards vaccines and develop strategies to minimize them.

Learning objectives

• Describe the main concepts of vaccines, vaccination, the history of vaccines, and immunization.
• Understand the clinical trial process that must be followed for the development of vaccines.
• Analyze safe administration procedures for vaccines.
• Describe the types of ESAVI and surveillance system use to monitor them.
• Know and understand the process of identification, notification, investigation, data management, causality analysis, determination of response actions and communication involved in ESAVI.
• Recognize the importance of immunization through a person's life course.
• Develop best practices and strategies to address vaccine hesitancy and debunk misconceptions.

This course is developed for

• Managers of national immunization programs in the Americas
• Health professionals in primary healthcare services, including immunization services
• Healthcare professionals who are entering the workforce or who need to update their technical skills

Course structure

• Module 1: Introduction and immunology
• Module 2: History of vaccines
• Module 3: Exploring more about vaccines
• Module 4: Events Supposedly Attributable to Vaccination or Immunization (ESAVI)
• Module 5: Immunization across the life course
• Module 6: Share information about vaccines

Workload

The course is available in the Public Health Virtual Campus of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). We estimate that each module can be completed within 60 minutes, depending on the participant's level of knowledge on the subject. Therefore, when considering the estimated time to complete all modules and the corresponding assessments, the course is assigned a total of 7 hours.

Assessment and certification

Participants must take a final exam after completing all the modules of the course. The final exam contains 30 multiple-choice or true/false questions. It is designed to give participants multiple opportunities to answer correctly until they achieve the required score of at least 70%. Participants who meet the requirements of approval of the course and complete the Virtual Campus Quality Survey will be able to download their certificate of approval issued by the PAHO.

Course purpose
The purpose of this course is to contribute to the strengthening of pharmaceutical regulation in the Caribbean by providing a knowledge base on essential regulatory functions for small States.

A functioning pharmaceutical system is essential to provide access to appropriately used, quality- assured essential medical products including vaccine storage and distribution. It is a foundational element for health systems, a pre-requisite to universal health coverage, and a powerful means of promoting health equity”.

Medical product quality assurance is an essential part of the entire supply chain from the producers of active ingredients to health facility staff preparing prescriptions. At almost all levels in the supply chain, national and international pharmaceutical quality assurance standards are defined and applied. The national regulatory authorities (NRAs) are, along with other matters, responsible that those standards are adopted and implemented. It is their prerogative to authorize and inspect all pharmaceutical organizations.

Not all NRAs are familiar with the updated WHO Good Storage and Distribution Practices (GSDP) standards. They are not always familiar with the way to conduct an inspection, or to evaluate an organization’s corrective action and preventive action (CAPA) plan. Increased inspection knowledge and capacity with the NRAs would increase the number of patients that have access to quality medicines, including vaccines.

Course purpose
The purpose of this training is to provide personnel in NRAs with the skills to conduct GSDP inspections of wholesalers and distributors. The course will be based on WHO standards and will cover all medical products. Specific attention shall be given to the management of vaccines in the supply chain, in particular COVID-19 vaccines.

Learning objectives
The main objectives of the course are to:

• learn and appreciate GSDP standards and requirements
• develop GSDP inspection skills
• apply GSDP inspection skills in practical cases

Target audience
The target group for the course are staff of the national regulatory authorities or equivalent agencies, specifically staff that already conduct inspections or may conduct inspections in the future.

Learning strategies
The course is conducted on PAHO/WHO’s virtual educational platform, Virtual Campus for Public Health (VCPH). The course incorporates authentic learning principles and promotes a collaborative learning environment which will encourage sharing of resources and help establish a “community of practice” amongst the participants. The course tutor will be an GSDP auditing and training expert, and will be supported by an academic coordinator.

The course comprises interactive modules that will incorporate pre-recorded video presentations, readings, activities, quizzes, guides and tools. It will include weekly participation in discussion forums, short individual assignments, and interactive group Zoom video sessions facilitated by the course tutor, all based on practical scenarios encountered in GSDP inspections. The final assignment will comprise an authentically constructed case study. A pre/post-course test evaluation will be required to be completed at the beginning and end of the course.

Following completion of the course, where feasible, participants will be encouraged to organize to observe a GSDP inspection alongside a senior inspector.

Hours of commitment
It is estimated that the course will take 45 hours of time for each participant.

Course structure and schedule

The course is divided into 7 content modules over 11 weeks. Each module starts on a Wednesday and concludes on a Tuesday.

Module 0: Course Orientation and Introduction
Module 1: Global Quality Issues & Introduction to GSDP Guidelines
Module 2: Conducting GSDP Inspections
Module 3: General GSDP Quality System Requirements
Module 4: Receipt and Quality Control
Module 5: Storage and Warehousing
Module 6: Dispatch and Transport
Module 7: Cold Chain Management

This course is only available to selected participants.

The Mental Health Global Action Program (mhGAP) states that “mental health conditions are common in all regions of the world and have a significant impact not only on the health and well- being of those affected but also on their families, friends and the communities they live in. At the same time, communities contain a wide range of resources that can be used to promote mental health and to support the recovery of people with mental health conditions”. Therefore, the mhGAP-Community Toolkit was developed in line with the expansion of the mental health services beyond the primary health care with the following recommendations:

• Highlighting the opportunities that exist within communities to promote mental health, prevent mental health conditions and expand access to mental health services;
• Providing guidance on how to identify local mental health needs and match them with activities that build on available resources and opportunities while engaging the local community;
• Providing practical tips on delivering mental health activities, programmes and interventions in the community;
• Combatting stigma, discrimination, social exclusion, and human rights abuses that affect people with mental health conditions.

To reduce the existing gap between the needs of the population and the existing resources and to promote the implementation of the mhGAP-Community Toolkit, a virtual training of trainers in the Americas region is proposed, followed by the identification and subsequent training of community agents.

Purpose of the course

The purpose of the course is to help managers and/or those responsible for community programs to identify the mental health needs of the local population and to train the trainers of community service providers in community mental health interventions to respond to these needs.

Learning objectives

The following objectives can be defined:

• Gain an in-depth understanding of the mhGAP – Community Toolkit and develop implementation skills.
• Acquire the methodological skills (exposition of content, role play, case studies, modeling, group work, etc.) and pedagogical skills to conduct a training course for professionals who are not specialists in community mental health.
• Acquire skills to conduct follow-up and provide supervision of training courses and community mental health interventions proposed by mhGAP-Community Toolkit.

Target audience

The course is intended for managers and/or those responsible for community programs with a fundamental role in the training of staff who work with and for the community. Experience in community mental health is desirable.

Course structure and contents

The course is made up of 5 modules:

Module 1: The Basics of Community Mental Health
Module 2: Mental health promotion and prevention of mental health conditions (Axis 1)
Module 3: Provision of community support in mental health (Axis 2)
Module 4: Recovery and rehabilitation in community mental health (Axis 3)
Module 5: Monitoring & Evaluation of community mental health training and intervention initiatives

Introduction
The 2018 report on The Burden of Mental Disorders in the Region of the Americas noted that "mental, specific neurological, and substance use disorders and suicide constitute a subgroup of diseases and conditions that are a major cause of disability and mortality, accounting for one-third of all years lost due to disability (YLDs) and one-fifth of all disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) in the Region of the Americas."

The Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan (2013-2030) adopted by WHO has among its objectives: "to strengthen leadership and governance for mental health". This is an objective that seeks to reduce the gap between the resources allocated to mental health and the burden of disease. The present course falls within this framework.

Purpose of the course
The general objective of the Management of Mental Health Services virtual course for the Region of the Americas is that participants, involved in the management of health services, acquire the competencies and skills to effectively manage comprehensive and integrated mental health services, focused on the person, with a community perspective, with emphasis on the primary health care strategy, and with a focus on culture, human rights, gender and the fight against stigma. This can be useful for countries to have trained managers for the development of reform processes, modernization and decentralization of mental health systems, and to reduce the gap between the needs of the population and existing resources.

Learning objectives
By the end of the course, students will have improved their ability to:
1. Analyze the mental health situation in their contexts and prioritize relevant information for decision making.
2. Implement a National Plan for Strengthening Community Mental Health Services at the local level, with an intercultural, rights-based, gender-based and anti-stigma approach.
3. To organize mental health services with a community approach.
4. To create a mental health information system.
5. Generate the financial basis for the mental health plan.
6. To design an evaluation and quality control system.

Target audience
Aimed at health and mental health professionals who manage or lead public mental health programs or services in the selected countries and are designated by the health
authorities. Participants will be limited to 48.

Course duration
The course begins on August 24 with a week to familiarize participants with the Virtual Campus tools. Activities begin on August 31 and end on November 27, a total of 13 weeks. The course load is 8 hours per week, i.e. a total of 104 hours.

The course is structured combining synchronous and asynchronous learning modalities. Synchronous sessions will take place on a weekly basis every Wednesday morning from August 31st.

Course structure
The course lasts 13 weeks, plus a previous familiarization period. It consists of 4 modules and a final work.

1. Introductory module
2. Mental health strategy
3. Policy, Plans and Legislation
4. Organization, information systems and financing
5. Evaluation and quality

This edition of the course is only for participants selected by the course coordination.