The Essentials for Healthy Homes Practitioners course brings together a diverse mix of housing and health professionals to promote practical and cost-effective methods for making homes healthier. A major strength of the course is the peer-to-peer learning that occurs between students. Through exercises, demonstrations and discussions, students better understand the roles, perceptions and challenges that their counterparts face, and they identify ways to coordinate their work to better protect residents from environmental and safety hazards in the home.
Lead poisoning prevention case managers and asthma case managers come at housing problems from the perspective of a client with a health issue. They typically have a strong relationship with the client, and work to educate the client on steps that can be taken to reduce environmental hazards and identify solutions to problems.
Case managers will benefit from the course because it will help them:
- Better understand the connections between their clients health problems, environmental hazards, and the root causes that create the environmental hazards such as moisture damage and damaged combustion equipment;
- Identify methods to reduce the root causes that result in the environmental hazards;
More effectively convince resident and property owner to resolve problems;
- Develop networks with other health and housing professionals who can help identify resources to help solve the problems; and
- Gain insight into the perspectives of nurses, pest management professionals, environmental health specialists, and community-based organizations to help all be more effective.