Community Health Worker (CHW) Core

The CHW Core is jointly led by the teams at the Sinai Urban Health Institute (SUHI) and UIC Office of Community Engagement and Neighborhood Health Partnerships (OCEAN-HP). During 2021, SUHI developed a COVID-19 and Community Health Worker (CHW) Core Skills training program that drew largely on the experience from the Center for CHWs Research, Outcomes, and Workforce Development (CROWD), SUHI’s CHW training and consulting arm that’s trained over 2,600 CHWs. SUHI surveyed CHWs and CHW administrators (132 respondents) around the Chicago metro area to better understand COVID-19 needs for CHWs as trusted messengers. It was determined that CHWs would benefit from professional development to support fostering community trust. SUHI developed and started implementing a training program focused on COVID-19, building vaccine confidence, and growing core CHW skills. Training was initially offered monthly in English via Zoom beginning in December 2021. Monthly, Spanish classes were added in March 2022. SUHI also offered access to their CHW learning collaboratives for all CHWs participating in the trainings. OCEAN-HP supported the SUHI trainings and is building additional CHW capacity through the UIC OCEAN-HP CHW training and technical assistance center, CHW CONNECT.

By August 2022, 333 CHWs had participated in the training and provided feedback. To prepare for the next phase of programming, the SUHI team used the evaluation findings to modify and improve the training. The improved training program was expanded into a train-the-trainer program to reach more CHWs and communities. This train-the-trainer program expands capacity by training CHWs to be trainers of others. In December 2022, the train-the-trainer curriculum was expanded to also focus on public safety and vaccine confidence more holistically. Additionally, SUHI is preparing reports and a manuscript on these efforts and will be presenting at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting in October 2024.