Self-assessment is considered to be a major component of learning in public health.1 It provides an opportunity for health professionals to reflect on competency-based strengths and weaknesses in order to identify learning needs and reinforce new skills or behaviors in order to improve performance. The MCH Navigator has been collecting data from our online Self-Assessment for five years and during that time have identified a number of data trends.
With over 10,000 completed assessments in the database, learners have consistently reported high levels of knowledge but low levels of skills across a number of competencies. This translates into MCH professionals having high levels of understanding of a competency but not as much self-efficacy in translating this knowledge into practice. In response to this need, the MCH Navigator has developed a series of implementation briefs that provide specific learning opportunities that focus on how to implement and execute skills associated with the MCH Leadership Competencies. This implementation brief is focused on Competency 1: MCH Knowledge Base/Context.
The MCH Functions Framework, developed by the Johns Hopkins Child and Adolescent Health Policy Center and other collaborators, is comprised of three main components: 1) a list of the ten public health services essential to promote maternal and child health, 2) an outline detailing program functions specific to MCH that apply to all levels of government and populations, and 3) examples of local, state and federal activities for implementing MCH program functions2.
The MCH Functions Framework can be used in many ways, but because it describes the substance of MCH work it is the perfect conceptual tool to use for classifying learning opportunities focused on implementing the MCH Leadership Competency #1: MCH Knowledge Base/Context.
View each of the three domains below and corresponding learning opportunities for: 1) Essential public health services, 2) MCH functions and government/populations, and 3) Examples for implementing MCH program functions.
References
MCH Knowledge Base/Context: Implementation Brief
Authors: Keisha Watson, Ph.D., MCH Navigator
Reviewers: Faculty and staff of the Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development