Building the Chicago Community Health Workers Local Network: Opportunities and Threats

Across the U.S., community health workers are a vital link between underserved communities and health resources. Chicago is home to a large diverse CHW workforce. However, there has been little history of coordination among CHWs citywide. Recognizing this need, CHW leaders formed the Chicago Community Health Worker Local Network (the Network) in 2003. HealthConnect One has incubated the Network since April 2007, acting as fiscal agent and staff advisor. Led by CHWs, the Network has taken great strides in its organizational development, increasing its membership to a mailing list of 426 and hiring its first full-time Coordinator. The Network's Coordinator will describe the progress and challenges experienced in building a new CHW advocacy organization in Illinois: organizing a day-long CHW Stakeholder Forum in 2009 for almost 130 community health workers/promotores and allies to discuss community health worker training, meeting monthly in a newly organized CHW Curriculum Committee to build consensus around a core training module for community health workers/promotores in the Chicago area, working collaboratively to develop a CHW Survey and Mapping Project to identify and map current CHW programs in Chicago and collect information to expand CHW programs. CHW organizations around the country are in a time of transition for the field, and external opportunities and threats abound. The Chicago Community Health Worker Local Network has the potential for being at the cutting edge of an advocacy movement that will take place with or without the voices of the CHWs leading this valuable work.