Lori’s Hands prides itself on continually providing educational opportunities for student volunteers to help them better understand the health-related and societal challenges that impact many people in the community. To that end, over the past year and a half, the Lori’s Hands team has been expanding its learning library by developing training videos that allow student volunteers to enhance their knowledge and skills.
Covering topics including caregiving, health equity, care coordination, and loneliness, the videos function as resources students can access in order to learn more about issues impacting their clients. Once they watch the videos, students take a short quiz to make sure they understand the material and can apply it in a community setting.
“The training of our students is an extremely important part of what we do,” Maggie Ratnayake, Program Director, said. “Our mission is not just to provide community support to individuals managing chronic disease, but it’s also to educate students – and equip them to go on to be more informed healthcare practitioners. Robust training ensures that students can better assist their clients and also that they walk away from Lori’s Hands really having gained a lot from this experience.”
The more student volunteers know, the better they are able to meet the needs of the community members they serve. For example, as Lori’s Hands students get to know their client, they may suspect he or she is feeling lonely. By watching the training video on loneliness, students can take this observation and learn about how loneliness can impact clients’ physical, emotional and social health and get ideas about additional ways to combat the detrimental effects. And with program evaluation revealing that Lori’s Hands clients often feel a decrease in loneliness symptoms after 6 months of participation, enhancing students’ understanding of loneliness (among many other important topics) is anticipated to be particularly impactful.
Through the training videos, Lori’s Hands hopes to provide additional resources for student volunteers to be knowledgeable when they’re visiting with community members. A student with a greater understanding about social and health inequities – as well the context they exist in – will be able to develop more ways to help their clients.
“Hearing about a client’s transportation issues may be kind of daunting for a student who’s never had to step into that world. They may be unsure of how to best support their client and how to access necessary resources. For example, where do you look, what’s available, and how do you call to get started?” Ratnayake said. “We think these trainings will fill some existing gaps in students’ knowledge and experience, which will, in turn, help students be able to provide more support.”
