Capacity Building for Community Health Workers Integrating Apprenticeships to Get to the Top of the Mountain

There are many paths to the top of the mountain.  This is especially true for Community Health Worker (CHW) training, also known as capacity-building.  CHWs are prepared to do their work by various sources including technical colleges, health systems, and by their own life experiences.  The type of work CHWs do also varies and is determined by the needs and assets of the communities they serve, CHW employers and support organizations, funding, government and health systems policy, and the passions of CHWs.  The capacity building approaches needed to meet their needs is equally varied.  Registered Apprenticeship is one path to addressing CHW capacity –building.

This presentation will allow participants to create a picture of the training modalities being used nationwide by posting on the wall where their training approaches sit on the continuum of training possibilities. The presenters will then identify how the apprenticeship model compares to the approaches shared highlighting the model as implemented in Texas and Wisconsin.  A CHW who has participated in the Texas behavioral health apprenticeship model will discuss how apprenticeship benefited her. The CHW Common Core (C3) Project will identify how its findings can be integrated in CHW capacity building including apprenticeship models.  Participants will learn about the apprenticeship training modality and how it can be tailored to meet varied training needs of states, employers and related funding sources (i.e. Medicaid) as well as the training goals of CHWs themselves.   Finally participants will be given resources to explore implementation of the apprenticeship model.