Heartbeat International’s virtual training academy achieved a major milestone earlier this year, reaching 100,000 training hours provided to pregnancy help organizations’ staff and volunteers.
Heartbeat’s Academy launched in 2011, said Dawn Lunsford, senior director of Academy, who has led the virtual learning platform since the beginning.
“The goal was to bring the training that Heartbeat was already providing through manuals and consults online,” she said.
Offering programs to assist pregnancy help organizations (PHOs) has been a part of Heartbeat International’s endeavors for many years, said Jor-El Godsey, president of the organization. These were initially delivered primarily in hard copy format or through classes taught at the annual conference or other in-person events.
“We have grown into a professional outreach that affirms life in very difficult situations, and education and equipping is key to being as effective as possible,” Godsey said. “That’s in our mission. We want an effective network of pregnancy help. We should be in a constant state of learning.”
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Academy's beginnings
The Academy’s purpose is “to equip a center and clinics, their staff, their volunteers, so that they are able to help and come alongside the women and families in their communities,” Lunsford said.
She joined Heartbeat International in 2010 after graduating from college, brought on board specifically to launch the organization’s virtual learning academy. Godsey said Lunsford has been the guiding hand on the digital side of the process.
“We started building the e-learning part, starting with hosting webinars once a month and then twice a month,” she said.
The first course to launch was the LOVE Approach, which remains a critical foundation for PHOs affiliated with Heartbeat.
Academy’s offerings now include webinars, online courses, and live virtual classes, and podcast episodes have also been added, Lunsford said.
100,000 training hours reached
The milestone recently reached denotes 100,000 actual training hours taken through Academy since its release.
“That is exclusively on-demand content that has been consumed,” Lunsford explained. “It’s not views or clicks or anything like that, it’s the number of minutes, seconds, and hours that has been logged actually doing training.”
Offering training on a greater scale was the primary objective of creating a virtual academy.
“With all the centers in the United States alone, we couldn’t send people out to every location [for in-person training],” Lunsford said.
Educational offerings
A variety of classes are offered on-demand through Academy, including training on Abortion Pill Reversal and the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) managed by Heartbeat International, leadership and board trainings, identifying and assisting human trafficking victims, marketing and donor relations, maternity housing needs, ultrasound training, and much more.
“Whether you’re sitting in the executive director chair, sitting at the board table, or you’re sitting in the counseling room or you’re at the coffee house with the donor – we’re trying to work and serve the entire movement,” Godsey told Pregnancy Help News.
“It was the maternity housing folks who pioneered the podcasting [aspect],” he added. “It became a regular offering through Academy.”
Training courses and webinars are provided by Heartbeat staff, by affiliates, and by other experts, depending on the topic, Lunsford said.
“If someone requests a training on a certain topic, we can often put it together rather quickly,” she said. “Between Heartbeat staff and our affiliates, we usually can find someone who can provide that training.”
Offering crucial learning
Lunsford and Godsey agree that learning and training are critical for PHO staff and volunteers, no matter where they are in terms of experience in the movement.
“It’s vital for the novice that’s stepping into this movement,” Godsey said. “It’s also key for the veteran that’s been around for a while to constantly be renewing their understanding with the new knowledge, the new ways we learn to convey the message.”
“The message is timeless,” he said, “but the methods are adapting, the models are changing and innovating, and so we want to be in that constant learner mode.”
“Lives are saved, and funds are raised,” Lunsford told Pregnancy Help News. “That’s some of the things we’ve learned that training has helped centers accomplish.”
Tweet This: Heartbeat International's Academy is meant to equip pregnancy help staff and volunteers to come alongside women and families.
As a new year approaches, additional courses are being planned. Therefore, training hours will continue to increase.
“It’s been fun to see the innovations in our movement grow and take shape,” Lunsford said. “Seeing that growth has been pretty exciting.”
