Engaging Personal Care Assistants in the Development of an Introduction to Spinal Cord Injury Course

Friday, November 11, 2022

11:00 AM – 12:15 PM

Presenter(s)

Jeanne Zanca, MPT, PhD, FACRM

IRB Chair/Assistant Director, Spinal Cord Injury Research
Kessler Foundation
West Orange, New Jersey, United States

Slides
Denise C. Fyffe, PhD

Senior Research Scientist
Kessler Foundation
West Orange, New Jersey, United States
John T. Morris, PhD

Senior Clinical Research Scientist
Shepherd Center
Atlanta, Georgia, United States
JS

Juan F. Segovia, BA in Psychology

Research Coordinator
Kessler Foundation
Clifton, New Jersey, United States
Trevor A. Dyson-Hudson, MD (he/him/his)

Director, Spinal Cord Injury Research
Kessler Foundation
West Orange, New Jersey, United States

High quality services from personal care assistants (PCAs) are critical to enable a return to a healthy, productive life in the community for many people with SCI. To help prepare hired PCAs to support their clients with SCI, we have created a web-based introductory course for PCAs. A key element of the project that created this course was incorporating the lived experience and advice of PCAs and other key stakeholders throughout course development. Our team’s experience developing this course offers insights for others interested in engaging home health care agencies and PCAs in the development of educational resources targeted to their needs. In this symposium, we will describe the strategies we used to obtain and utilize home health care stakeholders’ input, review the content of the course created with their guidance, and share recommendations for others who are interested in engaging with these important stakeholders.

Learning Objectives:

Discuss the importance of personal care assistance services for inclusion and well-being of people with spinal cord injury
Identify at least three topics addressed by an online introduction to spinal cord injury course for personal care assistants
Discuss benefits of using multiple (qualitative and quantitative) approaches for obtaining input of personal care assistant stakeholders in education program development
Discuss benefits of involving end users in course development and testing