A model for training home health educators within the Seventh-day Adventist Church

Abstract

The main objective of the research was to design a training model that would assist directors of Home Health Education Service to develop and formalize the Home Health Education Service training programmes in the Southern Africa Union Conference. The model will assist Home Health Education Service directors to design pre-service and in-service training programmes that are in harmony with the demands of the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA). At the moment, the training offered is not in harmony with SAQA demands. The literature review was tangentially approached because there was not enough literature directly related to the training of Home Health Educators within the Seventh-day Adventist Church's educational institutions. A careful examination of the literature review revealed that pre-service training was a desirable goal pursued by the Seventh-day Adventist Church's educational institutions. Although no formalized structure was put in place, in-service training was considered to be of great value to the institution. Although the researcher interacted with the population for the verification of data up to 2007, the population of the study however was made up of all the Home Health Educators in the Southern Africa Union Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 2003. The research assumed a combination of both the qualitative and quantitative approaches in order to ensure that findings from the data are more valid and authentic. To collect data, the researcher used questionnaire, interview, and examination of historical records. The data was analyzed, leading to specific interpretations and conclusions. Data collected indicated that Home Health Education Service has no pre-service training model from which to obtain pre-service training programmes and that the in-service training is in need of a comprehensive formal structure. A training model to address the training needs of the organization was designed in this research. Informed by the study findings, an Evaluation Training Model (ETM) was designed to meet the needs of training issues in Home Health Education Service organization. The new designed training model is designated: Evaluation Training Model (ETM) because evaluation is central to all the steps of the model. The researcher has recommended that for transformation to take place in Home Health Education Service, the organization has to use the new designed training model (ETM) and establish organizational training institutions in Southern Africa Union Conference for the training of Home Health Educators and their trainers.