Angela Fields
Appearances
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
Yes, CHWs follow a core competency that supports our activities that can be applied throughout our continuum of care. So we help individuals navigate social and health systems by linking them to appropriate services. So we are, it's a certification, it's a certificate program offered at various health institute, I mean various colleges throughout the state of Minnesota.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
And so it's a 16 credit, oftentimes program. And so we follow a scope of practice. And so we have a very distinct practice that we follow under our certificate. And so we help workers train, we are healthcare workers that are layman people. to be honest. And so it's those shared life experiences that we share with the community that helped build out our scope of practice.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
And so we work with a multidisciplinary team of licensed healthcare professionals. So we're not a competitor. And so we provide a mixture of basic health care to patient services in the settings such as the hospitals, clinics, schools, physician offices, nursing care facilities, and even patients' homes. And so we're also in behavioral health settings, and so we're our support workers.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
So we're not a license holder. So we work with licensed professionals, such as various clinicians, licensed practitioner doctors, nurses, social workers, case managers, and such. So we are that support workforce. And so we work also include peer support counselors, mentors, outreach workers, social service aides, and even substance use disorder and recovery.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
So we work in those capacities and we align ourselves up with these clinicians, as Rachel was saying, to allow them to work at the highest of their licensure. So they are the delegating professionals that delegates a task and it's all organizations specific. And so we work within the scope of practice to make sure that we are in compliance of our training.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
So we bridge the gaps between communities and health and social systems. We navigate health and human services and social services. We advocate. So we're that advocating piece for our clients to provide a two-way system of communication from the community to the providers, as well as the providers to the community. Because most oftentimes in clinics and organizations,
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
The clinical practice stops at the front door. Community health workers go beyond the clinical and organizational walls. So we're those grassroots professionals, the boots on the ground. We're out there in the community and we meet the community where they are.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
Community health workers really are everywhere. The hospital and clinic setting is very common for community health workers to be at. Me personally, I started my community health worker career out at a community agency that did home visits.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
So everything that Angela talked about, everything that Rachel talked about, kind of being those boots on the grounds, the eyes and ears for the patient to be able to communicate some of those concerns. Why isn't the patient making it to their doctor's appointments? Well, because... Have the funds. Why didn't the patient pick up their prescriptions? Well, because they don't have the funds.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
Rent is more important. So we're at many different levels, but I feel like when you go into the patient's home and like Rachel was saying, spend that necessary time to get
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
deep down into what the real issues are and the barriers are for access to healthcare and access to services is where we can really help people the most and kind of take away, as Clarence mentioned earlier, that competitive piece. And so I've been fortunate as a CHW to not have felt that in any of the workplaces that I've worked in, but I've definitely heard about it.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
And I feel like accessing a community health worker, wherever there's a need, even if it's at the local government assistance office, wherever that need is, we need to be meeting people in the community where they are, where we can spend that time to get acquainted with them, spend that time to build the trusting relationships, because that's where the real work is done once that trust is built.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
That's the common avenue that CHWs were utilized initially as the profession was emerging. But as Vanyi and Rachel were saying, we're everywhere. And so the question is, where do you find community health workers? You find us in state and local governments. You find us in clinics and hospitals that are common.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
You find us in outpatient care centers, nursing insurance companies, nursing care facilities, nonprofit and community-based groups and organizations, faith-based groups. So we're all over the place. We're in barbershops, we're in beauty shops, we're in oral health, we're in senior health. And so it's just those role titles that we work up under.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
So you may not know that you've encountered a community health worker. MNsure uses community health workers as MNsure navigators. So it's various areas that CHWs can be utilized in. And so it's not commonly through clinical. If I can speak on that, prior to becoming a doula, she worked in a governmental setting. And she can tell you a little bit about her work as a community health worker,
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
Yeah, as Angela mentioned, that was a very different role that I had never heard of, a community health worker holding a title as a public guardian. My role was to support folks who are developmentally disabled and they also happen to be seniors. So they had developmental disabilities as well as some of those chronic health conditions, the high blood pressure.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
And as you can imagine, they needed a lot of support. They had supports that were set through group homes and my role was to collaborate with the group homes, with the work readiness programs, with the transportation, and make just huge life decisions on behalf of these people as far as what was best for them. So yeah, we're everywhere and doing a lot of different things.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
And it just depends on where that person is. For instance, I also used to work for another agency that did support for seniors coming out of the hospital. Now they had to be coming out of the hospital, being discharged to home. And my role was to go out and support them to prevent a rehospitalization.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
So they would not have otherwise been able to access a community health worker for those specific services had they not been hospitalized and then returning home. So if they were going to a nursing home, then they would not have access to me. They would have just gone into the nursing home. But since they were returning
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
to their home, then now they need, we need to go in and do a false risk assessments. We need to find out if they have food for proper nutrition. Again, all of these things that would help to prevent a rehospitalization.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
Okay, you said what models has the US used compared to other countries or other what we're doing across the state? Well, CHW is an emerging profession, but we're still on the rise. We are still increasing in numbers across the United States.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
I've been fortunate to work on the project with the National Association of Community Health Workers as a representative for, we're considered region nine, the Minnesota region.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
um here in Minnesota there's roughly um certified those that have the certificate um there's roughly I would say about seven to eight hundred um community health workers here um but uh there are is a caveat I would estimate of close to maybe 1600 total in the state of Minnesota that our CHWs are working as a CHW but don't hold the certificate
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
I've had the privilege to work on this project with community health workers from Michigan, Kansas City, Chicago, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico and Hawaii. So in Hawaii, community health workers are called aunties or uncles. So that really, that deep rooted community connection. I mean, you know how you feel about your aunt or your uncle.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
if you've grown up and you've had in those public figures in your neighborhood that took those leadership roles such as your grandma or your uncle in the neighborhood. So that's how community health workers are utilized in Hawaii. So I'm learning how this scope of practice is pretty similar to our model, but they add those cultural pieces or their geographical specific components.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
that are appropriate for the care in those regions. So I'm learning quite a bit of the utilization and the large spectrum of CHWs and how we're being utilized across the board. One of the things that we're working on is to create a national community health worker virtual platform.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
So therefore, we'll be able to connect with one another and we'll be able to learn about what is going on in each state across the country because the legislative policies are different and the utilization of CHWs can look different from state to state. And so we want to, I'm curious about how CHWs are utilized in other states and they're just curious about how we're being utilized as well.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
And we want to capture all that data in one virtual platform. Also, we want to be emergency responsive and we want to be prepared for emergency. So we want to be able to communicate and have that free flowing communication throughout state to state. So I'm still learning by leaps and bounds.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
Hello everyone, my name is Angela Fields and I'm a community health worker, but I'm also the Associate Executive Director for the Minnesota Community Health Worker Alliance, where I oversee daily operations of the organization and also serve as a community engagement manager. leading and coordinating community engagement efforts and communication with stakeholders and partners of the Alliance.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
I have extensive experience working alongside communities and families, helping them find solutions to address health and social inequities.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
My last thought is CHWs, as we said before, we're frontline public health professionals. So we run into situations when others run out. We bridge those gaps between communities and health and social systems. We understand individuals. We understand the communities. We understand the cultural dynamics. We understand how to navigate systems.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
We understand the complex relationship with helping our clients and patients learn how to manage diseases and how to create better health because we come from these communities and we've utilized many of these resources that are in our own community. And so our outreach efforts can improve health policy for individuals in underserved areas because we build those communities capacity.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
Hello everyone, my name is Vani Howard and I'm a community health worker as well. Right now I am self-employed working on several contracts, one of which is the Minnesota CHW Alliance HRSA grant coverage. I'm the field experience apprenticeship coordinator and I have been a CHW since 2008. Some of the roles that I have held are
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
through a trusting relationship. We use encouragement and liaison tactics to help individuals who are seeking care. We keep them connected to their treatment processes. We help them adapt preventative health behaviors. that can result in overall better health, not only for that individual, but for those communities, because they're not straining and taxing those organizations and health systems.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
And so there's a proven scientific backing that there's a three to one return on the utilization of a CHW. So that means for $1 invested in a CHW salary, health and social systems saves $3 per client across the board.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
You know, the CHW profession is, to me, miraculous in the way that we can tap into several different trainings and still be a community health worker no matter what the other titles are. Great point.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
And so that is really somewhere that I carry a lot of my CHW skills and the things that I've acquired as far as learning and training over the years. I make sure that my doula clients know that I'm also a community health worker. which I think plays into a bit of a more reassurance role for them because I am comfortable going into hospitals.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
I am comfortable working alongside doctors and nurses and other staff that maybe a newer doula who doesn't have CHW experience is not able to, you know, be comfortable with right away.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
As far as the healthcare field, I have worked with people with mental health conditions, chronic health diagnoses. I came to the profession with a rich background in healthcare. I am also a doula, and so I'm learning and growing in that area as well. And it's great to be here to be part of this discussion today.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
I can do that one. Well, a community health worker is a frontline public health professional. We serve as liaisons between medical and social services and systems and the community. So we advocate for change and cultural competency of services delivered to those communities, as well as help improve access to care and the quality of care.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
And being that frontline health care professional, we build trust, lines of trust between those communities that are usually underserved. And so these trusting relationships helps us establish a streamlined system of care for those in those individual populations. Community health workers is an umbrella term for community health workers.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
We're commonly called CHWs, prematuras, community health representatives, outreach workers, and the list just goes on and on. It's about 50 names listed for us. Some health systems have exclusive names for the community health worker, such as system navigators, patient liaisons, and there's a caveat of names.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
I think that Kristen is exactly right as far as the approach and how accessing community health workers. The one thing that I want to add is even in my work as a doula, I have asked folks if they have heard of a community health worker.
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
And when Angela gave some of the titles earlier, they may not specifically know community health workers by that specific title, but they may know a community health worker who's working in
Health Chatter
Community Health Workers
a role where they're the patient navigator or they're the resource connector or some other title other than a community health worker because a lot of times after getting to know both in and outside of the doula world, it becomes apparent that they have in fact connected with someone who helped them through a role that is a community health worker type of role.