Since last summer, our Nutrition Services team, including several of our Registered Dietitian Nutritionists, partnered with Dr. Saria Hassan through Emory University and Rollins School of Public Health. Dr. Hassan had noticed a trend among her Burmese patients struggling with diabetes, and sought a solution that would help them better control the chronic disease.
Open Hand offers evidence-based Diabetes Self-Management Workshops (DSME), a six-week course that provides charts, activities, and meal planning strategies to help individuals better manage their diabetes. To best help her Burmese patients, Dr. Hassan and Open Hand RDNs partnered to facilitate trainings with their trusted community leaders, with the intent that they could then go on to provide DSME in Burmese and better tailor the course with foods familiar to the patients in need.
Starting in the fall, after six weeks of translation, training, and collaboration, nine community leaders graduated from this train-the-trainer program. Emory and Open Hand staff are both incredibly proud of the hard work of these individuals, and the thought they’ve put towards diabetes management for themselves and their community.
This experience is a huge step in expanding access to valuable nutrition resources throughout the community. We’re hopeful this train-the-trainer model will allow Open Hand to empower a wide range of communities who speak any number of languages with these important life skills.