The Community Health Worker training was held at St. Mary’s Medical Center from Oct 12th - 14th and 17th - 21st, 2011. Twelve individuals from the target community completed the training. Two trainees were then hired for the study. The curriculum included 40 hours of instruction in four main content areas: self-management skills, pediatric obesity, pediatric asthma, and pediatric asthma and obesity. Also informed by topics of concern that arose during key informant interviews and focus groups and CURA 2’s desire to be culturally relevant, the curriculum included sessions on resource management (finances and food) and using healthier options in traditional Puerto Rican, African-American and Mexican-American dishes. Evaluation of the CHWs knowledge and abilities was done through pre/post testing, skill demonstrations with asthma devices, and role plays to gauge their skill at interacting with peers and delivering information. At the end of the training, each CHW demonstrated their proficiency with the asthma devices and conduct a standardized role play for the instructors in order to determine if they had sufficient mastery of training content.
