Description

Community health workers are members of communities who provide a bridge between the community and public health systems and usually share ethnicity, language, beliefs, sexual identities, socioeconomic status and life experiences with the community members they serve.

CHW Roles

Cultural mediation between communities and the health care system;
Providing culturally appropriate and accessible health education and information;
Assuring that people get the services they need (navigation and resource referral);
Providing informal counseling and social support;
Advocating for individuals and communities within the health and social service systems;
Translating/interpreting health information on an informal basis;
Providing direct, basic services and administering screening tests;
Community engagement and empowerment; and
Modeling healthy behaviors
CHW Competencies

Communication skills

Interpersonal skills
Knowledge base about the community, health issues and available services
Service coordination skills
Capacity-building skills
Advocacy skills
Teaching skills
Organizational skills

CHW Characteristics

Interpersonal warmth, trustworthiness, open-mindedness, objectivity, sensitivity, competence, commitment to social justice, good psychological health, self-awareness and understanding

Models of Care: Incorporating CHWs

1. Member of a care delivery team: CHWs work with other providers (for example, doctors, nurses, social worker) to care for individual patients
2. Navigator: CHWs are called upon to use their extensive knowledge of the complex health care system to assist individuals and patients in accessing the services they need and gain greater confidence in interacting with their providers.
3. Screening and health education provider: CHWs administer basic health screening (for example, pregnancy tests, blood pressure checks, and rapid HIV antibody tests) and provide prevention education on basic health topics.
4. Outreach/enrolling/informing agent: CHWs go into the community to reach and inform individuals and families about the services that they qualify for and encourage them to enroll in appropriately matched programs.
5. Organizer: CHWs work with other community members to advocate for change on a specific issue or cause. Often their work aids community members to become stronger advocates for themselves.

The Community Health Worker training project is one of the projects funded by DWD and will train fifteen (15) community health workers and place them in positions that value the expanded family systems approach with the populations served. The focus of the training for the CHWs will be prevention education as well as helping facilitate communication between providers and communities. Ten (10) will be trained to serve the Latino community and five (5) will be trained with a new curriculum created for the African American community. In developing the CHW curriculum for the African American community, we are involving employers such as the Black Health Coalition and Milwaukee Health Services to respond to their specific needs and to custom tailor the curriculum and training to graduate CHWs who will be ready to work.

Job placements will follow training which will take place between March and May 2010.