The development and implementation of a volunteer lay navigation competency framework at an outpatient cancer center

To describe the development and delivery of a competency framework designed to guide the recruitment, training, and competency screening of volunteer lay navigators at an outpatient cancer centre in Victoria, BC.

Volunteers that passed a screening interview underwent 22 h of training focusing on the scope of the navigator's role, communication skills, and cancer center processes and resources. Volunteers that passed a post-training interview, by demonstrating a basic level of competency in three domains (Self as Navigator, Communication, and Knowledge/Information), were invited to participate as volunteer lay navigators in a three-step intervention with newly diagnosed lung cancer patients at the British Columbia Cancer Agency-Vancouver Island Centre.

Of the 27 volunteers who attended a screening interview, 20 were invited to participate in training. From the subset of 20, 13 of these participants achieved competency scores high enough to qualify them to practice as volunteer lay navigators.

By incorporating the lessons we have learned from this study, we believe that the lay navigation competency framework serves as a useful model for selecting, training, and supporting competent navigators.