The CHA-affiliated Health Workforce Initiative (HWI) just announced the release of new soft skills training curriculum designed specifically for health care workers. Soft skills are defined as personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people.

Feedback from employers engaged in the HWI Statewide Advisory Committee reported a glaring gap in foundational, or “soft,” skills for both prospective and existing health care workers. As a result, the California Community College Chancellor’s Office awarded the Health Workforce Initiative (HWI) a grant, in part, to design a curriculum to address the skills gap.

The outcome is Hi-Touch Healthcare: The Critical Six Soft Skills, a comprehensive toolkit that includes training modules in communication, professionalism, teamwork, problem solving, cultural competency and compassion. The soft skills training curriculum provides industry professionals with the background and tools needed to educate employees at all levels.

Following are the two overarching goals, as reported by HWI:

• Train both new and seasoned educators/trainers so that they are able to provide soft skills training to incumbent health care employees.
• Use soft skills training to enhance delivery of health care by incumbent health care workers, leading to continuous quality improvement.

These modules are free of charge and accessible in a “Grab-N-Go” format, allowing the trainer to implement modules in a customized and convenient timeframe. Each independent training module includes detailed explanations of the issue to be addressed, along with procedures for the trainer and intended outcomes. Trainers can select training topics from among the six competency domains and also choose specific activities within each independent module.

The modules are available now on the HWI website: visit http://ca-hwi.org/ and click on Hi-Touch Healthcare: The Critical Six Soft Skills.

In the Spring of 2017, HWI will also provide a series of two-day “Train the Trainer” workshops for employers interested in delivering this training to their staff.

For more information, please contact Shari Herzfeld at sherzfeld@riohondo.edu

Contact:
Christiane Becker
(213) 538-0722
cbecker@hasc.org