Friday, April 11, 2008

Family violence screening education for health professionals

I have just been told about a free online open access education course about family violence screening for health professionals. It has been developed by Jane Kozial-Mclean at the Auckland University of Technology.

Aim of program
The course Intimate Partner Violence Screening: Healthcare Worker On-line Learning Programme aims to:

to efficiently educate healthcare workers to screen and intervene in the case of intimate partner violence in order to interrupt the cycle of violence that involves abuse, injuries, illness and - all to often - death.

Content
The program consists of four chapters and two case studies. The content covers
  • introduction and background
  • screening
  • intervention
  • documentation
Review
In the grand scheme of things, this course is short and sweet. It works by providing information to read and then you have simple quiz questions to answer. Only basic computer skills are required to register and work your way through this.

You could complain about its lack of sophistication but I think it is a wonderful little tool for reinforcing information about family violence screening and intervention. I would certainly recommend it to my students and any other health professionals.

My only 'complaints' were:
  • that the only date attached to the web site was 2004 so I do not know when this course was last updated, and consequently I do not know how current the information is other than by looking at the dates of the references;
  • the references came right at the end of the course and I had to hunt for them. I would have preferred to have had access to the references at the end of each chapter;
  • there was no other way to contact the author/s other than the ability to email for 'help'.
I think this course is an excellent resource but if something like this is going to be made freely available, I feel it is really important to ensure that the readers know it is current and hasn't been abandoned years ago like old satellites in space.

Image: 'Silhouette series # 2'
www.flickr.com/photos/81765265@N00/346950561

2 comments:

Leigh Blackall said...

powerful image Sarah, but in the context of this subject - I think you should reconsider using it.

The photographer uses CC By as a default license, that great. Its good to see you using that. But I doubt there is a release signed by the people in the photo (maybe there is?) If there is no release, then the license means very little, because the people in the photo have not approved of their image being taken and published this way.

As a rule of thumb now, I try to avoid using images of identifiable people, or where I do, I use them in a non controversial way.

Powerful image with your title though.

Sarah Stewart said...

Thank you for the comment, Leigh, and I take your point and will change the image. Ironically, the image was taken of people walking down a street. Makes me think that we must be careful to look light and happy when we're walking around, not like we're about to murder someone. Here's the link to the original image I used, if you're interested in seeing what we're talking about