Training courses and refresher workshops on Nutrition in Emergencies, how to adequately meet our training needs?

NutritionWorks runs a three day course on 'Nutrition in Emergencies' in collaboration with International Health Exchange and Merlin. The next courses will take place in May and November 2001.

This is limited, however, in that it can only give an overview of the issues and cannot provide comprehensive practical training.

NutritionWorks is, therefore, considering expanding it's repertoire of courses to meet the needs of both those new to the field and those with experience but who want to brush up on their skills. The following types of courses/refresher workshops are being considered:

1. An in-depth practical training course on Nutrition in Emergencies for those with no or very little field experience. This course would last about 10 days (which could be in one block or for one day a week for 10 weeks). The emphasis would be on developing practical expertise (e.g. how to do an anthropometric survey/food and nutrition assessment, use of EpiNut etc.) and make extensive use of case studies and field experiences. It would basically be an expansion of NutritionWork's existing 3 day course.
2. A one or two day refresher workshop for experienced nutritionists. This would aim to provide an update on new policy, guidelines, and research findings (e.g. the latest on infant feeding in emergencies etc.). It could possibly be structured around presentations with plenty of time for group discussion and sharing of field experience.
3. A short course on nutritional issues in food aid for non-nutritionists (e.g. agency programme staff, food logisticians) who are involved with foodrelated programmes but who don't have a technical background in nutrition. The aim would be to provide an update on nutrition-related issues to non-technical staff (e.g. new forms of food aid such as blended foods, policy on distributing infant formula etc).

NutritionWorks would like to assess the demand for courses by asking the Field Exchange readership to respond to the following:

• Does your agency offer training in nutrition in emergencies? If so, what type of training and is it satisfactory?
• Do you think these kinds of courses/workshops would be useful to you or your agency?
• Would you or your agency be prepared to pay to attend such courses/workshops?
• Would other kinds of courses/workshops/training be more useful?

Send your responses and comments directly to Fiona Watson at NutritionWorks, P.O. Box 27415, London SW9 6WD, UK. Tel: +44 0207-582-3603 or email: fwatson@cwcom.net