COMMUNITY HEALTH WORKER RESOURCE
This site was created to share resources for starting and maintaining a neighborhood-based Community Health Worker (CHW) program. It reflects our lessons learned from 10 years of experience in the field.
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If you are new to this work, these tools and stories can help you decide if this approach can work for your community.
If you are already involved in a CHW program, we hope that these resources and experiences give you the encouragement, inspiration, and evidence you need to continue working toward a long-term, sustainable program.
What:
A searchable, clickable resource designed to provide just-in-time resources when you need help, ideas, and inspiration.
Who:
The Foundation for Healthy Generations and our partners throughout Washington State who helped to build and conduct pilot programs using a neighborhood-based CHW model.
What’s inside:
- Identifying and recruiting informal community leaders
- Job descriptions
- Interview guides
- Launch activities
- Supportive Supervision and Appreciative Inquiry
- Leader roles and responsibilities
- And much more
Neighborhood-Based CHW Model
Community health workers are in a unique position to build relationships between their community and the outside systems and policy makers whose decisions affect them. Developing a well trained, confident CHW workforce can play a huge role in creating health equity and improving community health.
In the neighborhood-based model, CHWs are typically part-time volunteers who receive a monthly stipend. They go through extensive training in such things as community organizing, connecting with community resources, and motivational interviewing.
In addition to preparing them to be effective in this work, the CHW experience is intended to build community leadership and lead to future paid employment.
CHWs are part of the communities they serve. They learn how to blend together health and social service systems to benefit their neighbors.
The result is better access to the health care and social supports that people need to lead healthy lives.