Background: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funded 67 health departments in late 2021 to implement CHW programs focused on COVID-19 response and building community resilience. At the same time, with CDC support, a national collaborative of CHWs and allies coalesced to offer CHW-delivered support to these programs. The result was the Envision Technical Assistance and Training Center. Based on the results of a rapid assessment and engagement with the funded health departments and CDC colleagues, Envision staff offered responsive training and technical assistance activities. These included webinars, communities of practice, individualized program coaching, and coalition-building activities to ensure workforce sustainability. The Envision evaluation team interviewed Envision staff annually for two purposes 1) To assess program strengths and challenges and develop recommendations for program internal improvements, and 2) To assess staff members’ perspectives on how CHW-led technical assistance has impacted CHW programs. This interactive presentation, co-led by a CHW, will feature the findings from Envision’s second-year interviews.

Methods: We conducted audio-recorded interviews with program staff after the completion of the second year of the project. All interviews were transcribed verbatim. We used applied thematic analysis to code interview transcripts and interpret findings.

Results: A total of 12 staff members participated. Initial themes related to internal program operations included a perception that Envision has successfully cultivated CHW leadership among staff, consensus that training and technical assistance are most effective when delivered in person, and a need to address some challenges with program communication across multiple organizations. In terms of program impact, staff perceived that Envision has successfully united national organizations that support CHWs, created connections between CHWs and allies and CHW networks, supported CHW leadership among CDC funding recipients, and created an accessible online library of tools and learning materials for CHWs and CHW programs.

Conclusion: A national CHW-led training and technical assistance center has successfully developed CHW leadership capacity, created connections between CHWs, and increased access to learning materials.

To date, there is more than 60 years of research documenting the positive outcomes of Community Health Worker (CHW) programs around the US. However, until recently the field lacked a set of common process and outcome indicators that would allow data to be combined and compared across regions, settings, and communities. This gap in the science has impeded the sustainability of the CHW profession.

In 2015, a group of CHWs and researcher allies came together to create the CHW Common Indicators Project. With support from CDC, the group identified priority concepts to measure. Based on a literature review and engagement with CHWs around the country, they developed and piloted a set of 12 process and outcome indicators that can be used in all CHW programs, regardless of the setting. The CHW Common Indicators (CI) facilitate assessment of the workforce conditions that CHWs need to be successful and the outcomes they are uniquely positioned to achieve.

In 2023, this group embraced a larger role and became the CHW Center for Research and Evaluation (CHW-CRE). CHW-CRE is led by a majority-CHW Leadership Team. A CHW Council and nationwide Advisory Group provide additional input into decision-making. CHW-CRE maintains a focus on promoting use of the CHW Common Indicators.

In recent years, CHW-CRE staff have discovered that one of the best ways to operationalize the CI workforce indicators is in statewide or national surveys of CHWs and employers. In statewide and national surveys, the workforce indicators can be collected confidentially from large groups of CHWs and employers. By collecting demographic information and workplace characteristics in the surveys, it is possible to compare CHW workforce conditions across these other factors. Statewide associations can then use the information to advocate for improved conditions for CHWs.

In this session, CHW members of the CHW-CRE and two state CHW networks/associations will discuss their experience collecting the CI workforce indicators in statewide surveys. Using participatory popular education methods, they will include practical information about survey development, dissemination, and analysis. They will also talk about how they are using the data in their advocacy efforts. Potential benefits to the CHW profession of nationwide collection and analysis of the workforce indicators will be discussed.

Background: Rhode Island’s long history of investing in community health workers (CHWs) stems from an appreciation that individual and community experience is required to inform systems, advance transformational policy, and achieve equity. In this shared journey, the CHW Strategy Team formed. This coalition recognized the need to develop a statewide plan that identifies supports needed for a robust and sustainable CHW workforce. Over the last year, CHWs and allies published the “Charting a Roadmap for Community Health Workers in Rhode Island”, a 3-year strategic plan for the advancement of CHW workforce development, integration, and sustainability.

Methods: By leveraging readiness in context, community, and opportunity the RI Department of Health and the state’s CHW Strategy Team engaged 100+ stakeholders (50% CHWs) within the state to co-design and develop the RI CHW Roadmap. Groups began the process by identifying a common definition of CHW in RI. In addition, key principles were developed by CHWs and their partners to support the advancement of their role, agency, and leadership as part of the roadmap process. The process included a series of design sessions, a landscape analysis of sustainable CHW models, and a series of key informant interviews across agencies. The information gathered was synthesized and stakeholders then rated the different ideas based on importance, feasibility, and timeline over a three-year period.

Results: Four key roadmap recommendations, with four key milestones each, emerged from the synthesis which include: 1) Growing the role, agency, and leadership of CHWs; 2) Workforce development for CHWs and their supervisors; 3) Payment and sustainability; and 4) People and place-based coordinating infrastructure. CHWs and allies co-facilitate implementation teams formed to steward action. Teams regularly share progress and barriers with the larger Strategy Team for advice and consent.

Conclusions/Lessons Learned: State agency or statewide strategy teams can build multi-sector capacity to chart a strategic path forward to advance support systems and practices needed for a robust and sustainable CHW workforce. It is essential to identify opportunities to incorporate CHW voices, stories, experiences, and expertise, as part of a state-level plans toward health equity.

Three key CCHWs created this abstract based on their experience in the Roadmap process and their co-facilitation of the subsequent implementation teams. They will co-present using interactive and popular educational techniques to explore practical tools that support Rhode Island’s strategic planning process and implementation-moving from ideas to action.

The National Council on Community Health Worker Core Consensus (C3) Standards (National C3 Council), formerly known as the Community Health Worker Core Consensus (C3) Project (2014-2024), recognizes that significant strides in payment options for CHWs brings many benefits but also new challenges. The C3 core roles and competencies (qualities, skills) offer a full scope of practice for CHWs but few funding directives support that full range. So while CHW curriculum and program designs may encourage CHWs to practice at the top of their scope, funding sources often promote a much narrower set of targeted service activities and further, may go on to define length and frequency of visits, among other service variables. In response to this and the stabilization provided by key national CHW leadership organizations, the C3 Council leadership determined it was necessary to put forward a more formal presence for the widely-cited lists of C3 core roles and competencies. Additionally, we endeavored to evolve into a formal organization, thus establishing the National C3 Council. The C3 roles and competencies, which build on the National Community Health Advisor Study (1994-1998), were informed and guided by CHW leadership, a tradition that was deepened during the work of the C3 Project. We are further reinforcing CHW leadership by establishing a C3-CHW Council to provide ongoing guidance and oversight to the curation of the CHW core roles and competencies as we move them forward as standards that can guide the field with self-determined integration. National, state, tribal, and territorially-based public sector programs, and those in the private sector including Community-Based Organizations, must determine how they will utilize the C3 Standards that will guide them. The C3 Core Roles and Competency Standards will be just that, standards to serve as a resource for the field and those adjacent to it seeking to fund CHWs and administer programs and policies that will drive the future. We seek to ensure that those investments in CHWs intended to start, strengthen, and sustain CHWs do so in a way that fully empowers CHWs to work within their full scope of practice to better the lives and health of the individuals and communities they serve. This presentation will describe the early stages of establishing the National C3 Council overall and report on outcomes to-date.