Healthy Start Leadership Training Institute

The Healthy Start Leadership Training Institute (HSLTI) was initiated in 2007 to provide technical assistance, training and support to the Project Directors of the federally funded Healthy Start projects throughout the country. Initially, the training was developed by a committee of the NHSA Board of Directors to present learning and networking opportunities for Healthy Start Project Directors, but was later expanded to include management and key staff (e.g. outreach coordinators, evaluators, etc.).

The Healthy Start Leadership Training Institute is designed to:

• Provide new Project Directors and other staff with an in-depth orientation to the Healthy Start community-based model and the core services and systems;
• Provide senior staff information they need to administer and operate a Healthy Start Project efficiently and feel competent while doing so;
• Develop leadership skills to serve project staff now and in the future.
• When HSTLI was initially developed, the curriculum began with an overview and history of infant mortality in the U.S. with trends, contributing factors, interventions and events that led to the creation of the Healthy Start program. The curriculum also included strategies for successful implementation of the core services and core systems that are hallmarks of the Healthy Start program. Other sessions and topics were added based on feedback from the Healthy Start Project Directors and recommendations from the Healthy Start Regional conferences. Over the past few years, HSLTI has focused much of its curriculum design around meeting the needs of Healthy Start projects that are related to accomplishing programmatic changes, challenges around staff supervision and technical project management, discovering self-motivation, leading with inspiration leadership, managing grants and budgets, and growing and sustaining progress.

Currently, HSTLI offers the following tracks:

• Track 1: Healthy Start Strategies for Success
• Track 2: Leadership Practices for Managers
• Track 3: Grants from A to Z
• Track 4: Meeting Leadership Challenges with Inspiration
• Track 5: Developing Community-Based Leaders and Sustaining and Growing a Healthy Start Program

To date, NHSA has provided training to over 600 Health Start staff.

To learn more about the HSLTI or to register for an upcoming Institute, Members, please log-in.