Home Visitor Training
The Santa Fe Community College Community Health Worker (CHW) Certification
Community Health Worker (CHW) CERTIFICATE FOR HOME VISITORS
“Before taking this course, I did not have a clear idea of the elements of home visiting or what being a home visitor entailed, but now I feel I have a deeper understanding.“
– Student Testimonial
The Santa Fe Community College Community Health Worker (CHW) Certification program is cross-walked with home visiting training. This course teaches students all basic skills to become a home visitor and to earn a CHW Certificate from the New Mexico Department of Health.
The course and certificate are designed to prepare individuals to work as home visitors in any home visiting program and are not specific to First Born.
Instructor
Tekla Johnson, LCSW and certified personal coach, has worked in home visiting for 20 years in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. She was a home visitor for 10 years, started the First Born Program in Santa Fe, oversaw it for two and a half years, and then worked in various leadership roles for home visiting and Early Intervention for 10 years. Ms. Johnson now is the First Born Model Office Director through Santa Fe Community College, supporting programs and First Born staff across the state to create and sustain high-quality home visiting for families in New Mexico.
“I questioned if I was a good candidate to be a home visitor because of my ACE score, but learning about resiliency reassured me that home visiting is what I am called to do.“
– Student Testimonial
This Course:
- Crosswalks the CHW Certification competencies with 28 fundamental home visiting skills. Students who complete the course receive foundational skills to be a successful home visitor or community health worker.
Ties 10 higher education credits with home visitation training. Credits earned in this class nest within the requirements for an AA in Public Health. - Students complete all coursework in one semester with two, eight-week classes (CHW 131 and CHW 132).
- Utilizes online learning to create a community of learners from across the state of New Mexico, and beyond. There is one class per week, via Zoom. Students complete all other content through an online learning platform, through a weekly discussion board, quizzes and reflection papers. This format allows students to complete the semester while working full-time.
- Is free to students, as long as scholarship and grant dollars are available.
- Is intended for anyone interested in learning more about home visiting including, but not limited to, home visitors, people considering home visiting or early childhood as a future career and early interventionists.
“This class differed from previous home visiting training in that it was more relationship based. We focused more on the realities of home visiting, the real struggle, real experiences, instead of just learning scenarios.“
– Student Testimonial
Learning Objectives:
- Apply the role and responsibilities of the home visitor to ethics in practice, client privacy, client rights, and client observation.
- Demonstrate communication skills that are sensitive to individual age, gender, culture, condition, and family role.
- Describe coordination of services for clients and communities.
- Demonstrate interpersonal skills in building positive, effective client relationships that promote learning, growth and self-efficacy.
- Identify and describe elements of home and home visiting safety and relevant infection control practices.
- Demonstrate accurate home visit documentation and information entry into the home visiting data base.
- Apply the home visitor role to educating families on parenting opportunities and challenges in the prenatal, postpartum, infant and toddler periods.
- Demonstrate effective relationship building and coaching skills that educate, guide and empower families.
- Identify and analyze how parallel process affects participants in a relationship with regards to emotional regulation.
- Demonstrate effective communication and interventions for participants requiring support and redirection in a parallel process.
- Demonstrate time management skills needed in managing visits, documentation, ongoing training, and supervisory and team meetings.
- Analyze the Home Visitor’s role in supporting family stability and capacity building through community knowledge and assessment.
- Describe other opportunities for the home visitor role and demonstrate how to be successful in starting a related career.
“Something else that I found fascinating about the course was the positive effects that a home visiting program can have in our communities.“
– Student Testimonial
“What the class taught me to see, is that we need to leave our own thoughts and ideas and biases at the door. We can’t take those in with us, because then the focus goes back on us, and we don’t want that. We want the focus to be on the family, the child, and how they are evolving, and not us.“
– Student Testimonial
“This course has not only taught me how to be a home visitor, it has given me tools to have healthy relationships with my family and friends. So much of the content has made me reflect on my own resilience and mental health and I believe it has made me a better version of myself.“
– Student Testimonial