Great Lakes FASD Regional Training Center (GLFRTC)

Key DFM Personnel

David Wargowski, MD (Pediatrics) - Principal Investigator
Georgiana Wilton, PhD - Co-I/Project Director
Barbara Vardalas, MA - Evaluator
Kristi Obmascher, BS - Education Director
Ron Prince, MS - Statistician

Funding

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Summary

GLFRTC represents a collaboration between the Departments of Family Medicine, Pediatrics, and Professional Development and Applied Studies. Based here at DFM, the overarching goal of the project is to increase knowledge, and improve clinical skills and practice behaviors of medical and allied health practitioners and students around the issues of prenatal alcohol exposure and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). The project serves a 7-State region that includes Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, and Hawaii.

Goal

Objective 1: To implement a menu of training and awareness opportunities reaching 600 medical and allied health practitioners and students in each year addressing the core competencies of the Competency-Based Curriculum Development Guide for Medical and Allied Health Education and Practice developed by the CDC.

Objective 2: To conduct a thorough process and outcome evaluation that assessed knowledge change, perceived skills, and practice change at four timepoints: immediate pre-training, immediate post-training, 3-months post-training, 6-months post-training.

Methodology

The GLFRTC staff conduct training activities throughout the 7-state region and conduct a 30-hour intensive FASD Training of Trainers Clinical Certificate Program (TOT) to prepare medical and allied health practitioners to provide training to their peers covering the seven competencies represented in the curriculum development guide. Over 100 practitioners have completed the intensive course and have conducted trainings reaching over 1000 of their peers.