Health Equity Training
Image: Health is Wealth, mural by Angel Quesada/CHAT. Location: A. A. Milne Elementary School.
Image: One Voice, mural by Angel Quesada/CHAT. Location: Shearn Elementary School.
Team Purpose
Organize grassroots groups and individuals located in one or more of the Houston Health Department’s five priority COVID zones to create networks of trained individuals and community groups that assist community residents to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters and public health emergencies and to mitigate the negative impact of disasters and public health issues and inequities on communities.
Training
Click training below for details and how to register. Email us with any questions.
Human Services/Houston Health Department Access and Equity
This registration link will allow you to register and begin class April 10 on the Canvas platform (the first face-to-face session is April 13). Upon registration, you will receive a welcome letter and access to the class and assignments. You will also be given the location of the first class. All sessions are mandatory.
Community Health Worker (CHW) State Certification training with Hybrid-virtual Canvas assignments and six live, face-to-face sessions, plus graduation day (total of seven, in-person sessions). This CHW training is through the University of Texas School of Public Health (UTSPH) and the Texas Epidemic Public Health Institute (TEPHI) with Houston Health Department (HHD) Access and Equity.
This course is a comprehensive, 13-week experience that covers 160 hours of curriculum and incorporates the eight core competencies as required by the state: communication, advocacy, interpersonal issues, service coordination, organizational skills, teaching, capacity building and knowledge base in specific health issues.
Class lectures are augmented by guest speakers, in-person activities and online learning. The UTSPH course is geared towards individuals who work within a clinical, community or public health setting. This course is not for continuing education (CEUs) for currently certified CHWs; this course is for first-time certification.
The virtual class is held on the Canvas platform and supplemented by six live, face-to-face sessions, plus a graduation (a total of seven sessions) at alternating Houston Health Department Multi-Service Centers, biweekly Thursdays from 9 a.m.-12 p.m.
Community Engagement Bootcamp for Pandemic Preparedness training (live, face-to-face, two days
Availability of bootcamp to be announced. A registration link will be posted.
This boot camp is designed for city, county, and state health departments, along with other public health emergency stakeholders, and community leaders in Public Health.
The event focuses on 4 key themes:
- Communities need to be central in pandemic preparedness and response.
- Community engagement is not a one-time effort.
- Risk communication is necessary but not sufficient for successful community engagement.
- Embracing a community resilience approach is needed to tackle future pandemics.
Some sample sessions include:
- How prepared is Texas?
- How does community engagement interact with the other key components of preparedness planning?
- What is community change and how does it relate to community engagement?
- An Introduction to mass mobilization.
- How to use community engagement plans?
Embedding Equity in a Public Health Ecosystem for Frontline staff and community members/grantees (live, face-to-face, five hours)
You will receive an invitation to participate. You may email us to get on the registration list.
Facilitated by Houston Health Department Cohort 1 Trainers and Prevention Institute — A National non-profit advancing health, safety and wellbeing through upstream, community-level prevention centered in health equity and racial justice.
Prevention Institute began working with the Houston Health Department by request of Director Williams to develop a framework, recommendations, and applicable tools for Houston Health Department to apply within existing structure and programs to advance equity in the department's response to COVID-19 and ongoing health disparities.
Purpose: to explicitly address and reduce health disparities in Houston through procedural, distributional, and structural equity improvement and to equip practitioners with specific tools, examples, and recommendations that can be:
- Applied internally to embed operational processes and adopt a structure that uplifts equity throughout our relationships with COVID response and recovery work
- Applied externally as a guide to ensure that transparent procedures are in place for equitable distribution in decision-making through partnering, contracting, hiring, and investing in communities
- Applied beyond COVID-19 response and recovery to embed practices and policies that can be maintained so equity is a consistent value
The goal is to advance equity through strategies, interventions and services such as: outreach and mobilization, improving data, , and building and expanding infrastructure and capacity.
Reflections include:
- How/where does equity or inequity show up in your current work?
- Where do you and your work fall in the ecosystem?
Managing to Achieve Equity in a Public Health Ecosystem for management staff and supervisors (live, face-to-face, 8 hours)
You will receive an invitation to participate. You may email us to get on the registration list.
Designed for managers and supervisors as an exploration of roles and imperatives for advancing the 8 core elements of the Houston Health Department's embedding equity approach. Emphasis on internal and external coordination, advancing progress across three measurable equity objectives, change management tools and building more equitable and sustainable relationships with communities.
Facilitated by Houston Health Department Cohort 1 Trainers and Prevention Institute — A National non-profit advancing health, safety and wellbeing through upstream, community-level prevention centered in health equity and racial justice.
Prevention Institute began working with the Houston Health Department by request of Director Williams to develop a framework, recommendations, and applicable tools for HHD to apply within existing structure and programs to advance equity in the department's response to COVID-19 and ongoing health disparities.
Purpose: to explicitly address and reduce health disparities in Houston through procedural, distributional, and structural equity improvement and to equip practitioners with specific tools, examples, and recommendations that can be:
- Applied internally to embed operational processes and adopt a structure that uplifts equity throughout our relationships with COVID response and recovery work
- Applied externally as a guide to ensure that transparent procedures are in place for equitable distribution in decision-making through partnering, contracting, hiring, and investing in communities
- Applied beyond COVID-19 response and recovery to embed practices and policies that can be maintained so equity is a consistent value
The goal is to advance equity through strategies, interventions and services such as: outreach and mobilization, improving data, and building and expanding infrastructure and capacity.
Reflections include:
- How/where does equity or inequity show up in your current work?
- Where do you and your work fall in the ecosystem?
Implicit Bias Workshop (fully virtual)
Further details to come. You will become eligible to participate in this workshop AFTER completion of Embedding Equity or Managing to Achieve Equity in a Public Health Ecosystem. You will receive an invitation to participate.
Facilitated by National Training Institute on Race and Equity (NTIRE)
After attending the workshop, HHD staff and partnering organizations will be able to:
- Identify and address bias within the Houston Health Department and partner organizations
- Provide employee strategies on managing/mitigating their biases in carrying out their work responsibilities
- Understand effects of implicit bias on employee life cycle
- Review impact of bias on performance evaluations, team dynamics, and decision making in the workplace
- Understand and manage the content, skills, and behaviors needed to create diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces and communities