Lenny Rhine – A leading example in Training the Trainers
Since Jun
e 2006, Lenny has been holding training workshops all over the world for the Research4Life programmes with financial support from various organizations, including WHO, ITOCA and in collaboration with the Librarians Without Borders®/Medical Library Association (LWB/MLA). Lenny has held training workshops all over the world, including sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and South Pacific, as well as English speaking countries in the Americas and Eastern Europe.
What have been some of the benefits you have seen directly from your training?
Some of the visible or tangible benefits are just observing the participants gain the skills to utilize the R4L resources. I’ve seen researchers and physicians find a valuable article and proceed to read it completely instead of completing their training course assignments. Hospital residents have spent hours using the evidence-based medicine resources as they are obtaining invaluable information for use upon returning to the hospital’s wards. Health information professionals realize the value of the programmes and understand their role as teachers. After a national workshop, there is increased usage of R4L programmes by the institutions represented. We also see an increase in registrations.
How has the training translated to capacity building for your institutions?
As Gracian mentioned in the June2012 Partner newsletter, the goal of the train-the-trainer mode is to give the participants the skills so that they can use the R4L materials and also instruct others when they return to their institutions. Besides the specific usage skills, we also teach marketing /promotion strategies and ask the participants to apply them at their institutions. In future workshops, we plan to discuss specific outcomes that will be surveyed at six and twelve months.
Since 2008, we also have conducted training for individuals from developed countries whose institutions have linkages in R4L eligible institutions. Besides approximately 10 workshops, participants have developed 2 training modules and a series of HINARI training videos.
How has the training continued? (i.e. Train the trainer)
In the past 5+ years, LWB has conducted 50+ workshops in 23 countries with an average attendance of 25 people. As previously mentioned, many of these are in conjunction with ITOCA or sponsored by WHO regional offices. To reach individuals who are unable to attend formal workshops, we have developed online Short Courses for HINARI, AGORA and OARE. These courses are available on the ITOCA and MLA Moodle servers. Via group email messages, I also continue to communicate with participants from workshops for the past three years. These messages keep them informed about new R4L developments and new/updated training material.
How many institutes do you normally train in a year timespan, and what counties/cities have you done in the last six months?
LWB has conducted 6 workshops in the last 6 months in Namibia, Nepal and Vietnam. The ones in Vietnam were collaborations with the World Intellectual Property Organization. The normal rate is 4 or 5 training sites per year with 8 to 10 workshops. In June, LWB and ITOCA taught a HINARI distance learning course in English, French and Portuguese. 71 individuals completed the online course.
