“A Little Fish in a Big Pond:” Strategies to Improve Supervision and Support for Community Health Workers

While community health workers (CHWs) are becoming a more accepted part of the health care team, this unique workforce requires appropriate supervision and careful support from other health professionals. This presentation will address organizational factors that challenge and support CHWs in their roles.

This presentation will begin with an interactive component: a self-assessment to help audience members think about supervision and integration issues CHWs face. Audience members will be encouraged to engage in interactive, anonymous, text-based polling throughout the presentation. We will share results from an online survey of over 250 CHWs and 23 interviews with CHWs using a semi-structured interview guide. Data were analyzed using SPSS to explore key roles and perceived level of integration. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed by two independent coders in MAXQDA. Key roles include assuring that people get services they need (56%) and advocating for individual and community needs (60%). Findings show CHWs consider themselves an important part of the care team but often to struggle to find their place “in a big pond.” CHWs feel most supported in their work when they have strong relationships with their team, are well trained, and make connections with CHWs outside of their organization.

Through active audience participation and rigorous mixed methods research, this presentation will describe type of supervisors CHWs work with, CHW’s satisfaction ratings based on various demographic criteria (e.g., size of organization, years at organization), and offer CHW-suggested strategies for improving CHW integration and supervision to improve job satisfaction and integration.