Train the Trainer Outreach Project
College: Mt. San Jacinto College
1499 N. State St., San Jacinto, CA 92583
College Contact:
Rhonda Dixon,
Coordinator, Career Education Special Projects
rdixon@msjc.edu
or 951-487-6752 ext. 1604
Target population:
All special
populations, particularly single parents, displaced homemakers, and
single pregnant women.
Goals: To streamline
outreach efforts by coordinating information on the college, and
training individuals in community agencies who can refer potential
students to the college.
Description:
Formerly, the
college piloted a project to employ two special populations outreach
coordinators to visit community agencies and traditional as well as
alternative educational institutions to recruit students. When funds
to employ the outreach workers were exhausted, the college adopted a
"train the trainer" model. Information on the college was grouped
into four categories: Matriculation, Financial Aid, Student
Services, and Career and Technical Education. Binders containing
resource information on theses four topics and accompanying
PowerPoint presentations were prepared. The college conducts
train-the-trainer sessions to selected individuals at community
agencies and institutions at no cost to the requesting agency. This
initial train-the-trainer session takes about 3 hours to complete.
These individuals in turn train their co-workers, by presenting the
PowerPoint and resources for any one of the four topics. These
presentations are planned to be approximately 15 minutes in length
and integrated easily into staff meetings at the community
agencies/institutions. The training enables community workers to
become knowledgeable of the college's offerings, and to provide this
information to their clients and refer them to the correct contact
points on campus. This practice has centralized information on the
college and reduced confusion on the part of prospective students.
This has been particularly valuable in working with social service
agency clients who are primarily single parents and displaced
homemakers. Mt. San Jacinto College is in the process of training
other colleges in the region to adapt the strategy to their
settings. The college is also preparing annual updates to send to
trained agencies.
Staffing:
The project was
developed by the Coordinator for Career Education Special Projects
who was assisted by a consultant and student workers. The
coordinator conducts the training, and the student workers prepare
the binders for distribution. It is recommended that colleges
wishing to implement the same strategy employ a project coordinator
to work with their campus colleagues and departments for up to 40
hours to tailor the materials to their particular site. Trainings
could be conducted by any of several college departments
traditionally involved in outreach. Implementing colleges should
also plan to employ a student worker for approximately 40 hours to
compile resource materials and prepare binders for the trainings.
Facilities, equipment, materials:
The training takes place at the community agencies. Materials
covering the four topics - Matriculation, Financial Aid, Student
Services, and Career and Technical Education - are assembled into
binders that are left with the agencies. It is suggested that
trainings include a review of the PowerPoint presentations using a
laptop and projector, although successful trainings have been
conducted without that review because hard copies of the PowerPoint
presentations are included in the resource binders.
Costs, funding source:
The Mt. San Jacinto cost to develop their materials and the
train-the- trainer model were supported by a regional consortia VTEA
grant. It costs approximately $900 to prepare 100 binders containing
campus materials and presentation CDs. Additional costs include 40
hours of coordinator time and 40 hours of student worker time.
Outreach and marketing:
The college has sent letters and flyers to community agencies and
institutions offering the train-the-trainer sessions. They have
worked through their career and technical advisory committees, the
area tech-prep consortium, and have developed very close ties with
the CalWORKs agency and social services. The message they deliver is
that they will train a core group of individuals who can in turn
train the rest of the agency staff.
Evidence of effectiveness:
Participants who receive the training are surveyed to obtain their
reactions, and the response has been very positive. Newly trained
trainers are also encouraged to give feedback to the college
whenever they implement one of the four training modules. This
feedback has been more sporadic, but also positive. Preparing the
materials has been a collaborative process on the campus and has
resulted in much better on-campus communication and collaboration.
The practice has resulted in many more referrals to Mt. San Jacinto
College. When these referrals come to the campus they are more aware
of campus resources and procedures. It has given the college more
visibility in the community.
Suggestions for replication:
The practice has been designed to be transferable to other colleges.
Mt San Jacinto College is currently developing a facilitator’s guide
to encourage replication by other colleges. The guide should be
available in summer 2005.
