Durrell Fox, BSBA, New England HIV Education Consortium & Boston HAPPENS, 23 Miner Street Floor G, Boston, MA 02215, 617-262-5657, dfoxnehec@aol.com and Lisa Renee Siciliano, LSWA, Massachusetts Community Health Worker Network, 4 lancaster terrace, worcester, MA 01609.

CHWs are clearly effective advocating to secure health care and services for clients/families. This is proven daily as we find resources and access to care for our clients, when others feel it's impossible. The CHWs advocating for access project works with CHWs to build on these advocacy skills and competencies and shift them to the wider focus of advocating for health access systems policy and legislative changes. CHWs bring a unique perspective to health care advocacy because we, as a workforce, are one of the primary gateways to health care services and information for many families and communities. CHWs can be a very powerful voice in impacting or developing health policy and legislation that increases access to care on a local and national level. The CHWs Advocating for Access project, through training programs and workshops, looks to identify challenges and barriers to CHW involvement in health policy and legislation advocacy and then find ways in which CHWs can work to overcome them. All trainings and workshops are led by CHWs assist participants in developing an understanding of the health policy and legislative process. We give tips and lessons learned on building relationships with policy makers and legislators as well as successful communication strategies with that CHWs can employ to connect with and educate policy makers and legislators. We are also developing a CHW Advocacy tool kit to make it easier for CHWs to get and stay involved in health and human services advocacy.

Learning Objectives:

• participants will
• *gain and understanding off the role CHW advocacy has in eliminating healtth disparities
• * be able to indentify and utilize personal and organizational advocacy strategies
• *be able to idenify and utilizee strategies to build reelationships with legislators and policy makers

Keywords: Advocacy, Policy/Policy Development

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.