Community Health Worker Training Program - Address: 812 W State St; West Lafayette, IN 47907 Project Director: Cody Mullen Contact Phone: 765-494-8310 Email Address: cjmullen@purdue.edu Website Address: https://www.purdue.edu/ Requested Award Amount: $2,407,068 Community health workers (CHWs) build individual and community capacity by increasing self- sufficiency and health knowledge through activities such as outreach, community education, informal counseling, social support, and advocacy. CHWs improve clinical outcomes for chronic and other health conditions that disproportionately impact Black, Hispanic, and rural populations in Indiana. Purdue University, through its Community Health Worker Development Institute (CHWDI), and in partnership with key stakeholders, will: • Expand the public health workforce by training new and existing CHWs and health support workers with specialized training and financial support to offset expenses that would impede success in training. The Program’s goal is to provide training so that 75% of participants become newly credentialed CHWs and health support workers. • Establish educational training curriculums and recruit, train and enable new CHWs and health support workers candidates to acquire core competencies for CHWs and Public Health certifications that follow state, local, or entity guidelines and support essential public health services. • Reduce barriers to CHW and health support worker program enrollment and retention by providing eligible trainees with participant support (e.g., tuition/fees, stipends, health insurance, and childcare). • Extend and upskill the public health workforce by developing new or enhancing existing curriculums to increase the skills and competencies of existing CHWs and health support workers. • Provide additional training for current CHWs and health support workers to include the core competencies for Public Health and Essential Public Health Services. • Develop or enhance trainee curriculum around evidence-based core competencies for public health, including but not limited to emergency response education, prevention, treatment, and vaccine hesitancy research. • Increase CHW and health support worker employment readiness through field placements and apprenticeships developed in collaboration with a network of partnerships that will enable trainees to respond to and support essential public health services and provide them with employment opportunities. • Implement hands-on CHW and health support worker integrated training through community-based partnerships that provide field placements in underserved communities. • Provide job placement services and on-the-job experiential training to new CHWs and health support workers through Department of Labor or state/local registered apprenticeship programs. • Advance health equity and support for underserved communities by increasing the number of CHWs and health support workers that are employed as integral members of integrated care teams that use their expanded skills to reduce health disparities. • Address critical gaps in public health and community needs that can be filled by CHWs health support workers in communities that are disproportionately burdened by COVID-19, health inequities, limited access to technology, and the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH). • Increase the distribution and diversity of the CHW and health support workers workforce by recruiting, training, or employing, as applicable, individuals who will serve in underserved communities as integral members of integrated care teams. Through sustained collaborative engagement with community-based, clinical, and academic partners, we seek to help neighborhoods facing the challenges of poverty and financial insecurity through strategic job creation. Similarly, by creating sustainable positions within rural and minoritized communities, CHW/HSPs can directly impact the various social determinants of health.
