Outbreak Training

These four workshops will give you an understanding of the global and national structures which coordinate humanitarian responses. For a successful deployment, UK-Med members need to engage effectively with the structures and mechanisms of a response. These workshops will equip you to respond to a rapidly-changing environment, especially if you’re in a leadership position.

The workshops are: 

• Humanitarian Architecture and Outbreak Coordination
• Effective Capacity Building and Training Delivery 
• Contact Tracing and Surveillance 
• and Risk Communication and Community Engagement.

The Humanitarian Architecture and Outbreak Coordination workshop is designed to give you an understanding of the way that responses are coordinated and structured. 

By undertaking the Humanitarian Architecture and Outbreak Coordination workshop:

• You’ll learn what humanitarian architecture is, and how it can vary
• You’ll learn how coordination mechanisms work during an outbreak response
• You’ll be able to identify different categories of involvement during an outbreak response
• You’ll have a better understanding of outbreak response pillars 
• You’ll have an awareness of the complexities and importance of working with the coordination structures and systems
• You’ll feel confident in engaging with agencies and organisations.

The Effective Capacity Building and Training Delivery workshop aims to improve your understanding of capacity building and why it’s important. Knowledge sharing, technical support and training development are all major parts of our responses which help us to ensure that our interventions are sustainable. You’ll also develop soft skills around understanding cultural differences and different ways of learning.

By undertaking the Effective Capacity Building and Training Delivery workshop:

• You’ll learn how capacity building contributes to a successful handover and transition of activities
• You’ll feel confident in applying effective instructional and presentation techniques
• You’ll become familiar with the Training of Trainers educational style.

The Contact Tracing and Surveillance workshop will increase your understanding of contact tracing, its importance, and key issues around surveillance.

By undertaking the Contact Tracing and Surveillance workshop:

• You’ll understand the national and international Information Management Systems (IMS) used during an outbreak
• You’ll learn the principles of contact tracing, how to train contact tracers, and how to quickly scale it up
• You’ll be able to outline the principles of surveillance during an outbreak, including field hospital reporting, mandatory reporting and the role of the Emergency Medical Team Coordination Cell
• You’ll be aware of the ethical issues around contact tracing and isolation strategies
• You’ll understand the roles of individuals and teams in contact tracing and how to contribute to an effective surveillance system.

The Risk Communication and Community Engagement workshop (RCCE) will improve your understanding of communicating risk and emphasise the importance of engaging with the community. You’ll explore different approaches to RCCE and how these can affect activities such as case management and infection prevention and control.

By undertaking the Risk Communication and Community Engagement workshop:

• You’ll be able to implement social behavioural change (SBC) in an outbreak, and understand various SBC models and theories
• You’ll appreciate the importance of risk communication and community engagement in the context of an outbreak
• You’ll study previous RCCE interventions
• You’ll gain an understanding of the coordination mechanisms which support RCCE activities, and understand the importance of a community-led approach.

These workshops are responsive to the needs of UK-Med’s deployments and therefore timings may vary. They will take place as live online workshop sessions, with participants working in groups of no more than five, with a maximum of thirty participants per course. There will be a focus on learning from case studies and real-life scenarios.

The selected participants on these courses will mostly be clinical with varying levels of humanitarian experience. While many of the participants will be experts in their field, this specialist training might be the first time you’re learning about the global and national structures which coordinate humanitarian responses, especially outbreaks.

The key topics you’ll learn on the Humanitarian Architecture and Coordination workshop are:

• Coordination terminology, the mandates of key agencies, key organisations and movements
• Humanitarian principles and their influence on architecture and coordination mechanisms
• The difference between global and national coordination mechanisms
• The role of the World Health Organisation, Ministries of Health, and the Incident Management Structure
• An overview of International Health Regulations
• The roles of the Global Health Cluster, the EMT Secretariat, the Global Outbreak and Response Network, and other relevant bodies.

The key topics you’ll learn on the Effective Capacity Building and Training Delivery workshop are:

• Effective training design
• Principles of training delivery
• Suitable learning and teaching models
• Issues around cultural awareness

The key topics you’ll learn on the Contact Tracing and Surveillance workshop are:

• World Health Organisation and national surveillance systems for outbreaks and endemic diseases prone to outbreak
• The principles, scalability and challenges of contact tracing
• Examples of common reporting requirements and forms
• Healthcare worker infections
• Ethical dilemmas
• The roles and responsibilities of the Outbreak Specialist Response Team.

The key topics you’ll learn on the Risk Communication and Community Engagement workshop are:

• The difference between communication and communications
• Social Behavioural Change, models and theories, and their importance in outbreaks
• Social science and community engagement
• Examples from the field.