CHWs in housing: Building healthy communities from the ground up

Historically, CHWs have been community organizers who promote the health of individuals, communities, and society. Many current efforts seem to focus on narrowly defining the CHW role as increasing access to services*. In this presentation we highlight how low-income housing residents, with the assistance of CHEF and Housing Authority staff, developed and facilitated their own CHW program in order to mobilize community members to take charge of their health and the health of their community.

As part of this program, the CHWs designed and implemented community gardens, community kitchens, walking groups and senior activities based on resident feedback. They helped community groups reach out to community members to promote healthy communities. For example, CHW's assisted the Housing Authority get honest feedback from residents while implementing a no-smoking policy.

The CHWs' training consisted of an Orientation focused on the local community and Patient Navigator Training which the CHWs helped to test-pilot in conjunction with the Washington State Department of Health, and is offered across State for CHWs and their supervisors.

During the program's first year, the inaugural team of CHWs was instrumental in recruiting the second team and provided mentorship and leadership to them as they completed training and began community outreach. CHWs have assisted in efforts with local partners to build a CHW coalition.

The role of CHWs has particular relevance to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act because they can be the glue bridging clinical preventative services and community based prevention. *Noelle Wiggins, Personal Communication