CHW Network Newsletter

In fall 2022, in partnership with the City of Houston Health Department, the Health Equity Collective (HEC) launched a comprehensive effort to strengthen the community health worker workforce in the Greater Houston region using a systems approach. The Health Equity Collective is a systems coalition of over 200 organizations in the Greater Houston region with a singular mission of improving care coordination for social determinants of health. Community Health Workers (CHWs) play a significant role in the human capacity of care coordination. Through this newsletter we are excited to provide our progress, updates and impact of this initiative. To learn more or engage, click below:

Click Here to Read the Full Article

Community Health Worker Network Launched

As part of this initiative, the Health Equity Collective launched the CHW Network comprised of health equity leaders, advocates, training center leaders, and employers. The CHW Network is dedicated to enhancing the CHW workforce through a lens of organizational systems change. By focusing on systemic transformation within organizations, the network aims to amplify the impact and effectiveness of CHWs, by promoting principles of structural, procedural, and distributional supports for CHW workforce across the Greater Houston. The systemic transformations started with the voices of CHWs through a journey mapping process and led to convenings of CHW employers, training centers, and leaders. This has led to the dissemination of shared learnings, and best practices for adoption and/or implementation across the network.

Accomplishments from the Network includes the completion of key informant interviews with CHW leaders across Texas, a comprehensive landscape survey that assessed organizational policies, practices, and readiness to support CHW career development. In addition, a visioning session held in June 2023 led to the development of an organizational systems map to help guide organizations in the adoption or implementation of equity enhancement strategies for the CHW workforce.

View the video of our systems map guiding organizations on how to strengthen their CHW workforce:

Early Adopter Learning Cohort

The CHW Employer Early Adopter Learning Cohort is a self-selected group of organizations within the Greater Houston region, leading the charge in shared development of organizational equity enhancement strategies for CHWs. This group includes Harris Health Health System, Memorial Hermann Health System, The African American Health Coalition, Equity Bridge LLC, Network of Behavioral Health Providers, Community Health Choice, Harris County Public Health, and Houston Recovery Center.

Click Here to Read the Full Article

CHW Resource Hub

The Center for Health Equity has launched a dynamic CHW Resour ce hub designed to freely and effectively disseminate resources, upcoming events, comprehensive trainings, and exemplary best practices throughout the CHW Network, Health Equity Collective, statewide and nationally. It serves as a centralized repository, ensuring effortless access to resources for CHWs, organizations, researchers, and stakeholders alike, thereby streamlining collaboration and knowledge dissemination within the CHW landscape locally and nationally.

Click Here to Visit the CHW Resource Hub

CHW Policy

The HEC CHW Network collaborated with Texas Research-to-Policy in developing a bill tracker to actively track bills relevant to CHWs in real time and their progression through the 88th legislative session. The 88th legislative session saw the approval of two seminal bills HB 1575 and HB 113 which now creates a pathway for CHW services to be reimbursable by Medicaid. The CHW Network members are actively participating in discussions and developing recommendations to inform policy implementation and operationalizing these bills across Texas.

Email Here to Engage with our SDOH Policy Workgroup

Community Voice

The Health Equity Collective Community Voice workgroup, spearheaded by Center for Civic & Public Policy Improvement (CCPPI), led the development of a Community Voice Engagement Toolkit, consisting of resources for organizations on how to effectively and respectfully build community voice engagement into an organization’s population health and health equity efforts. CCPPI engaged with community members and CHWs to improve access and implement these tools in underserved communities across Houston.

Click Here to View the Community Engagement Toolkit

Formational Equity Advisory Leadership Council

Prevention Institute and Nadia J. Siddiqui Consulting developed recommendations for the formation of a Health Equity Advisory Leadership Council to promote procedural, structural and distributional equity for CHWs within organizations hiring and training CHWs. As next steps, the CHW Network will review recommendations and discuss plans for implementation.

Click Here to View the Full Report with Recommendations

CHW Spotlight

CHW Advocacy Day

On April 5th over one hundred CHWs and allies came together in Houston to celebrate the 14th Annual Expanding the Role of Promotores and Community Health Worker Advocacy Day hosted by Dia de la Mujer Latina. This event coincided with the observation of Community Health Worker Day in Texas as proclaimed by Governor Greg Abbott. During this symposium, CHWs heard from elected officials and an expert panel who answered questions about recently passed legislation relating to CHW reimbursement.

Explore CHW Training Opportunities

Explore valuable skill-building opportunities for CHWs to elevate their careers. Dive into courses such as Psychological First Aid, Substance Use Disorder, and more.

Some sessions are offered in both English and Spanish. For more information, see TEPHI CHW Training Courses.

Upcoming CHW Events

May

10

Training Program: UH Community Health Workers Initiative

Conference Title: Where are we driving? Changing the Map for Non-medical Drivers of Health.

June

9

Health Equity Collective - Quarterly Meeting

Join us for the Health Equity Collective’s next quarterly meeting.

September

17

The Texas Association of Promotores and Community Health Workers (TAPCHW) State Conference

Save the date for the upcoming TAPCHW conference. More details to come on the TAPCHW website soon.

Are there any upcoming events or seminars you would like to share with our CHW Network? Please email Maggie Green with more information Maggie.green@uth.tmc.edu

Special Thanks to our Partners