According to the National Council on Aging, “The Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP) has been proven to help older adults better manage their chronic conditions, improve their quality of life, and lower health care costs. The ultimate goal of the program is to help people gain self-confidence in their ability to control their symptoms and learn how their health problems affect their lives.”
OCES has conducted many leader trainings in evidence-based programs – CDSMP, Diabetes and Pain Self-Management, Matter of Balance and Powerful Tools for Caregivers. What was unique about this leader training was that out of the fifteen participants, eleven spoke another language in addition to English, including Mandarin, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Cape Verdean Creole, Spanish and American Sign Language (ASL). CDSMP consumer workshops can now be led in all of these languages with the exception of Spanish.
OCES staff members are Master Trainers for the Stanford University Chronic Disease Self-Management Education programs, Matter of Balance and Powerful Tools for Caregivers. Evidence-based workshops help people manage or prevent chronic conditions such as diabetes, arthritis, COPD and hypertension. By training new leaders, OCES’ goal is to help expand workshop capacity throughout the state. This recent leader training will bring CDSMP workshops to a more diversified consumer base within Massachusetts.