This week the MFLN Military Caregiving team hosted their monthly professional development webinar on, ‘Promoting Knowledge Gain and Behavior Change through Effective Education.’ After presenting the content to professionals, Andy Crocker, webinar presenter and Extension Specialist in Gerontology and Health at Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, provided key takeaways for participants to implement in their work with clientele.
During the presentation Crocker addressed eliciting knowledge gain and behavior change by highlighting three core competences to professional development: (1) effective communication, (2) principals of adult learning, and (3) stages of change.
Each of the core competences identified in the presentation provided a framework to effective education.
- Communication: Identify how helping professionals can be active listeners and active responders when working with service members and their caregivers and understand the importance of interpersonal relationships among helping professionals.
- Principles of adult learning: Understand how and why do adults learn new information and what it takes to effectively transform information into education to promote knowledge gain.
- Stages of change: Recognize how adults put behavior change into practice to enable them to receive really high quality outcomes from the education that they are being provided.
Key Takeaways
So what is the moral of the story? What can you as a service provider do to increase the knowledge of your service members and their caregivers using the three core competencies discussed in Tuesday’s session?
Remember, communication is a cycle in which errors can occur. Learn to tailor your messages to what the person you are working with wants to know. For example, you are providing high quality information, but you are also looking for that feedback from the client. You must acknowledge their experience and their need to be self-directing and that you are listening and responding appropriately.
Adults want task-oriented learning. Make your education about the tasks, not about the education. Give your clients something they can take and run with and appeal to their variety of learning styles. Support what you are saying with written information and give your client something that they can do on their own. Change is hard and relapse happens, but if we can plan accordingly we can look for ways to help facilitate that change and plan for action.
If you missed Tuesday’s webinar click on Promoting Knowledge Gain and Behavior Change through Effective Education to learn more. There is still time to watch the recording and receive continuing education credit or a certificate of completion.
This MFLN-Military Caregiving concentration blog post was published on May 17, 2015.
