The Camden Coalition Learning Center launched the Skills Lab training earlier this year — a suite of 12 online, self-paced microlesson courses covering key skills for frontline health and social care staff. The 10–15-minute courses feature topics including “Building genuine relationships” and “Letting the patient lead,” each delivered with role-play demonstration videos and downloadable resources.

Skills Lab was designed to support care team members at the forefront of complex care interactions. As such, it was piloted by a team of Camden Coalition community health workers and social workers who each have their own experiences with relationship building, harm reduction, de-escalation, and the other skills covered in the Skills Lab. Included in the pilot were:

• Anna Muniz, Community Health Worker
• Brian Thompson, Housing Coordinator
• Catherine Fahey, Social Work Coordinator

The trio of care providers shared their perspective on the Skills Lab pilot in a recent Q&A, including examples on how the courses benefitted their work in the field and changed their perspective on community and social work strategy.

In honor of its launch last month, the entire 12-course Skills Lab training is available for 20% off on the Camden Coalition Learning Center through March 31.  

Can you describe your professional work? What drove your interest to participate in the Skills Lab pilot?

Anna: I am a community health worker, and I’ve been doing this work about five or six years now. I wanted to be a part of the pilot because I love to put my input, I grew up in Camden, and I just feel like I can give back and help see some beautiful work transform.

Brian: My particular work focuses on the Housing First team. I’m responsible for relationship building with the landlords, locating apartments for the clients, and then walking them through the entire housing process from start to finish. And that’s inclusive of gathering their documentation, getting them approved, helping them find a place, and getting them settled. I also help them put their lease together and support them so they can maintain their housing and reach their complex health goals while they’re in the program. So, if any issues ever come up with maintenance, landlords, or additional paperwork, I’m here to help them. If folks want to move, I’ll help them move to new places. And if there’s any issues at the complex, I’m the person that tries to come up with a solution before we think about moving someone or removing them from the program.

(Before) the Skills Lab pilot I hadn’t done a training course for these skills in a while, and I thought it would be good since I’d been doing the work for such a long time. And sometimes things get stale. But it was good to bring this back, because it hit a lot of key points that I forgot about that we were taught years ago in the COACH and the motivational interview trainings.

Cathy: I am one of the social workers on the team, and I’m always up for a good pilot. I mean, our team in general loves running pilots — “Let’s take a couple people and try this.” And I think that’s a great idea. I also really liked it when asked to participate, we were explained how it would be brief. I’m all about doing something concrete. If you can give me something I can learn in 10 or 15 minutes and then I’ll be able to use it, that is really helpful in the work because I just don’t think we have enough time for everything.

How would you have described your complex care skills prior to participating? What did you come in thinking you needed to most improve relevant to your work?

Anna: I genuinely cherished the training experience. It was not only a wonderful opportunity to deepen my understanding, but it also provided valuable refreshers on practices I had already been engaging with. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that many of these practices had their own names and established procedures that I hadn’t been aware of before. Learning all of this felt incredibly rewarding, and I’m truly excited about what lies ahead. I even hope to revisit this training in a couple of years, as life is always evolving. There were so many enriching aspects to the training, each remarkable in its own way. The topics we explored ranged from familiar conversations to those that are often more challenging to discuss, yet each was thoughtfully organized, allowing me the space to express my feelings openly.

Brian: I think it was a great refresher course. At the time of the pilot, we had a handful of vouchers we wanted to fulfill really quickly. So, I knew I would be addressing a lot of clients over a short period of time, and it was good to have that skill set front and present before I went into that task. It lined up really well with the team rolling [the Skills Lab] out, asking me if I wanted to be included [in the pilot], and then being able to take that and apply it with the visits I was doing with clients in real time.

Cathy: I think that it was really helpful for me. A lot of times, you come into this work with a certain set of skills, and in the course of working and meeting the daily demands, you’re not really focusing on what skill you’re using, how you’re implementing it, or how you could implement it better. But I think that it’s really helpful to get those refreshers. I was thinking back on the Skills Lab courses that I was assigned to review. And one that I think was helpful was “Identifying and establishing boundaries.” That’s one of the things that I struggle with all the time. Because of the work with the patients, you have to constantly refresh your awareness of what you’re doing. I also think “Develop a care plan” was really helpful. It’s great to use the trainings to refresh and inform your work going forward.

Can you describe some of the real-world impacts you observed from going through the Skills Lab pilot? Do you have any success stories you can share?

Anna: Relationship building is very important with every participant you encounter. Everybody’s different. They all have different needs from you, and need different parts of you to make the help work.

One success story comes to mind, regarding the microlesson on building secure relationships. I had a patient who had a lot of walls. And to be honest, when I was introduced to this patient, I was scared because I didn’t want to be rejected by them. But I just spoke to them like if they were my family member — like they mattered. And a lot of the patients that we are encountering don’t get that attention. Those conversations are just not there. It’s pretty much, “This is what you’re going to do.” And then when they come back, “Did you get it done?” That’s it.

With this work, you just have to wait for that participant to be ready to speak to you regarding whatever you want to talk about. And right now, their struggle is with isolation and pushing everybody away. So, I make it a point to come by their house often and check in on them, ask how they’re doing and why they haven’t been communicating – showing my acceptance of their who they are and my reliability as a partner in their care. Sometimes, you have to take that type of approach with a participant, just so that they know you actually care about them. Sometimes it’s hard. But you just keep trying.

Brian: During the pilot, we had a client that was having an issue at their complex. This was an ongoing issue with the landlord, with the other tenants, and he just was not grasping the severity of this situation and how it could impact his housing. So, by going through the Skills Lab, I did a lot of reflective listening, implemented OARS (open questions, affirmations, reflections, and summaries), and then provided support to this individual while emphasizing how if he stayed at this location, everything could unravel. So, he knew that we were there to support them and we had his best interest at heart.

But this client was really comfortable in that location due to his vision disability. He got really familiar with the location. He knew where everything was, and I think that’s where the hesitancy was about him moving. So, after doing the pilot, I thought about bringing him out to the location that I was planning moving him to — trying to get him more comfortable. And it really worked, because it allowed him to see that he could go to another location and still have the same if not more success than he was having where he was. Everything lined up for him and I wanted him to see that I had his best interest in mind.

We did it right before the holidays. After we came back from break, he called me and said, “Brian, I know I’ve made this difficult, but thank you. This was the best thing I’ve done for myself in a long time.”

Cathy: I used to work as a counselor in a drug and alcohol treatment facility. We used to say, “We have a very eclectic approach,” which means that we try different things until we get something that works. I think that’s part of working in the field. You meet more and more people, and each day you’re dealing with different things. You don’t often take that step back and say, “Oh, okay. That’s what happened there. And today we are going to do this.” And I think the Camden Coalition as an organization is very good at that: linking the philosophy of the work with the actual work and saying, “Today we’re going to have a visit focused on genuine relationship building. Today we’re going to have a visit focused on care planning,” such as you can do through the Skills Lab.

It’s a very different approach when you talk to somebody who’s been working with different agencies before us. They’ll say, “You’re not going to ask me about my missed appointment? You’re not going to scold me?” No — we’re just going to sit and talk to you and listen. We’re good listeners. Not a lot of people are.

What, to you, is the potential effect of the Skills Lab training on the way your peers deliver care if they were to go through it?

Anna: I think it’d be really beneficial. They’re definitely going to be more aware of what they’re capable of doing with the Skills Lab. And the subjects that were chosen to be featured help make the work more understandable and establishes everyday language that relates to the participant that we’re working with. Anybody who’s taking the Skills Lab will improve their work through it.

Brian: When you first come into this work, you get bombarded with trainings, then you get sent out into the field. And sometimes you don’t have the time to really refine your skills or update your skills. So, I think the Skills Lab is really great for anybody in the field, to sharpen your skills or maybe learn something that you haven’t learned already. You can actually take a lot of the things in these labs and apply it to your real day-to-day work with clients.

For me, it helped me think about some things that I haven’t been thinking about in a while or have forgotten about since I started. And it’s always good to have as many tools possible, and for our clients to give them options. You’re dealing with a multitude of personalities and different backgrounds. So, I think it’s good to have the wide variety of skills featured in this lab.

Cathy: We’re always taught to be strengths-based. I think that if you look at the topics, you can identify the skills that you already have, and you can refine what you’re already using in a way that makes it more effective for the patient. And I think that’s something that a lot of people are already doing the work — but they’re not aware. Like we were saying before: you may be doing the work, but you might not be aware of every skill you’re using. Making skills more explicit can be really helpful.