The TRAIN Team would like to introduce the newest affiliate member of our community, Illinois-TRAIN (I-TRAIN)! Illinois is the 25th state aboard TRAIN and the 28th affiliate overall. I-TRAIN will be headed by the Illinois Department of Public Health and is ready to push off from the station. A formal announcement will be posted to the Public Health Foundation website when IL-TRAIN’s customized affiliate site (affiliates are states, national organizations, or educational institutions who have purchased a customized TRAIN portal) is live and ready for learners to embark upon training. In the meantime, Illinois learners can create a free TRAIN account on the TRAIN National site. I-TRAIN will serve 96 local health departments, which cover 100 of the state’s 102 counties and 99.5% of the population.1 In addition, Chicago, a major metropolitan city of over two million will be served by public health professionals increasing their knowledge through TRAIN.2 This move to the TRAIN Community will help benefit the public health workforce, not only in the large city of Chicago, but also in the numerous surrounding local health departments all over Illinois.
The TRAIN community has recently grown with the addition of I-TRAIN as well as FL-TRAIN, AZ-TRAIN, and TRAIN-ID which indicates the increasing interest that state health departments, public health training centers, educational institutions, and national organizations have in a comprehensive learning management system. Through TRAIN’s collaborative network, affiliates gain access to over 26,000 courses/trainings from more than 4,000 course providers from states, organizations, and academic institutions in the TRAIN network. More importantly, by joining the TRAIN Community opportunities are presented to affiliates to be able to share their own trainings/courses with the TRAIN network. By linking both state and national affiliates, participant organizations are able to partner with one another in order to improve their efficiency and effectiveness in delivering and managing workforce development efforts.
Learn more about the benefits of becoming a TRAIN Affiliate and contact the TRAIN Team to explore how your agency/organization can join the TRAIN Community.
1 http://www.idph.state.il.us/local/home.htm. Accessed July 23, 2012.
2 http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&met_y=population&idim=place:1714000&dl=en&hl=en&q=population+of+chicago. Accessed July 24, 2012.