Building CHW leadership skills: The Women's Health Leadership Institute

The Women's Health Leadership Institute (WHLI) is a new national initiative sponsored by the DHHS Office on Women's Health. The purpose of the WHLI is to build the leadership skills of Community Health Workers (CHWs) as community change agents to reduce health disparities among women. Although CHWs are a recognized workforce for outreach, education, patient navigation and referral, the leadership potential of CHWs to address the root causes of health disparities and build health equity is yet underdeveloped. The WHLI Curriculum consists of five modules that build CHW leadership capacity in terms of systemic thinking, group facilitation, needs assessment and planning in order to promote collective action at a community level. Under the guidance of a national Stakeholder Group of CHW experts, the Institute is developing a team of Master Trainees from the ten Public Health Regions. In turn, these Master Trainees will train up to 200 CHWs across the country. The WHLI is highly interactive so that CHWs can build on their collective experience and then apply what they learned when they return home. CHW Trainees receive ongoing support and web-based technical assistance for their community-based projects. Evaluation of the WHLI is measuring the cultural appropriateness of the curriculum for a diverse national audience. CHW Trainees from the first five public health regions will share their impressions and preliminary evaluation results. Information on how to become a CHW Trainee will be shared and suggestions on how to further disseminate the WHLI will be explored.