Stand Up for Health: Health and Wellness Services for Your Community*
Do you work in a public library? Are you interested in engaging with other public librarians and staff members to improve your knowledge and comfort with health and wellness related reference and services? Stand Up for Health: Health and Wellness Services for You Community is a free online course was developed in cooperation with WebJunction, PLA, and public librarians to create a cohort learning experience.
Registration is limited to public library staff.
During the course we will explore consumer health, health reference in a public library environment, free health resources for library staff and patrons, and developing health and wellness related programming.
The course has four sections:
- Introduction to Consumer Health for Public Libraries
- Health Reference in a Public Library Environment
- Health Resources for Public Library Staff
- Health and Wellness Programming and Outreach for Public Libraries
Stand Up for Health is taught as a 4 week online course or an in-person 8 hour course with pre and post work.
Online
Online the course takes place over four weeks, new content is released each week and consists of assigned readings, discussion with your fellow cohort members, and an assignment, all of which should take about three hours. This class is intended to be completed as a cohort for public library staff that involves discussion with your fellow students. There are no set hours to be online each week, but it is important that you complete the discussion and assignment for each week in a timely fashion. New content will be released each Monday.
In-Person
In-person the course is taught over eight hours and involves lecture, discussions, and role-playing. Attendees are required to complete both a pre and post assignment to receive CE credit.
CE and CHIS
The course provides 12 continuing education (CE) hours from the Medical Library Association (MLA) and covers the five competencies required for Consumer Health Information Specialization (CHIS) level 1 from MLA. You will leave the class with an action plan for how to use your newfound knowledge and expertise in reference services and programming. In addition to better serving your community, you’ll develop skills to take with you if and when you decide to move on to another library.
If You Do Not Work in a Public Library
This class was designed specifically for public library staff. The focus of this course is a public library environment and discussion posts and homework should reflect that. If you do not work in a public library please consider Beyond an Apple a Day: Providing Consumer Health Information at Your Library or Health and Wellness @ the Library: The Essentials of Providing Consumer Health Services
- Locate local health assessment reports and identify the health concerns in the library’s community and apply that knowledge to health reference, resoures, and programming
- Recognize and understand the importance of health literacy and the differing needs of a diverse community
- Utilize best practices to evaluate health website, applications, social network sites and guide patrons in their usage of these tools
- Recall best practices when conducting health reference with patrons including but not limited to legal and ethical issues
- Utilize recommended resources form NLM, NIH, and other organizations to meet diverse health information seeking needs
- Apply best practices for health collection development and maintenance of consumer health materials in a variety of formats
- Develop programs and services utilizing best practices and incorporate health information resources