Community capacitation center: Preparing community health workers for their role as agents of social change:

Community Health Workers (CHWs) are carefully chosen community members who participate in training so that they can promote health in their own communities. While CHWs in the US today play multiple roles, a variety of studies have suggested that CHWs' role as agents of social change is their most important role. Current efforts to recognize CHW contributions and better integrate them into the health care system are welcomed by CHWs and their advocates. However, if current efforts lead to the CHW role being narrowly defined as increasing access to existing services, then the historic role of CHWs as change agents who work for social justice could be lost. The content, methodology, and values of CHW training programs determine, to a large degree, the roles that CHWs will play and how they will play these roles. For over 10 years, the Community Capacitation Center (CCC) at the Multnomah County Health Department in Portland, Oregon, has used a combination of content, methodology, and values to train CHWs to play multiple roles, including roles as change agents and community organizers. In this interactive workshop, staff from the CCC will provide information about the model they have developed and explore with participants how the model can be adapted and applied in other CHW training programs.