Community Health Aides in Grenada: A Proposed Experimental Training Model

This article focuses on the nature of health care problems existing in rural Grenada, the primary health care policies and programs implemented to deal with those problems and a proposed innovative training program for Community Health Workers. This training model requires a balanced orientation reflecting both technical skills and the interpersonal communication skills, needed for such health workers to work effectively in village communities. The key factors of this experimental approach include: (1) regular sessions scheduled over an extended period of time to update and reinforce information and skills previously taught; (2) ensuring that the training has direct relevance to the situations faced by the health workers; (3) an exphasis on group process training which focus on skills and orientations actually found to be relevant and useful in the field, and; (4) to develop training materials that are less theoretical and more practical than most formal health education programs. The organizational context of this Experimental Training Model is described in terms of the need for greater decentralization of administrative decision-making, the importance of integrating physicians, local health workers and community leaders in the development of appropriate health policy strategies for the rural areas. The rural areas of Grenada need greatly increased numbers of local health workers. This study recommends a training strategy which has the potential both of providing useful training for the grassroots health workers and also in linking the central health system more effectively to the local communities of Grenada.