Sunday, May 11, 2025
5/11/2025
Community Health Worker Training Program - Rowan School of Osteopathic Medicine proposes a Dual Community Health Worker (CHW)-Certified Peer Recovery Specialist (CPRS) Apprenticeship Program to Integrate Health into Recovery Support Education in New Jersey. The project will engage 240 individuals in the new dual certification program, 135 will receive new certifications, 45 enrolled in a registered apprenticeship program, and 60 current CHWs or CPRSs will receive enhanced skills training. Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine proposes a partnership with the New Jersey Department of Health Colette Lamothe-Galette Community Health Worker Institute and the New Jersey Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services to develop a Dual Community Health Worker (CHW) and Certified Peer Recovery Specialist (CPRS) Apprenticeship Program. The purpose of the program is to expand the public health workforce that is able to provide both recovery support and provide essential public health services to address chronic diseases in underserved communities in New Jersey that have been devastated by both COVID-19 and the opioid overdose epidemic. Through the program, RowanSOM will train 180 individuals who are dually certified as both community health workers and certified peer recovery specialists and extend the knowledge and skills of 60 individuals with only a CHW or CPRS certification. The geographic catchment area for the project will be six counties in southern New Jersey with the worst health outcomes and the highest overdose rates in the State. Research shows that individuals with substance use disorders (SUDs) are at higher risk for one or more chronic health conditions and that hospitalization is more prevalent in patients with SUDs and a chronic health condition compared to those without an SUD. Recent studies show that overdose deaths continue to worsen for Black or African American people, but rates for other race and ethnicity groups held steady or decreased. During the pandemic, o verdose death rates per 100,000 Black or African American individuals increased from 24.7 in 2019 to 36.8 in 2020, which was 16.3% higher than that for White individuals (31.6) in 2020. Other studies showed that people with SUDs had an increased risk for COVID-19 and experienced worse outcomes. However, despite high rates of chronic health conditions in individuals with SUDs and increased risk for relapse to opiates and other drugs when patients develop a chronic health condition, the community health worker profession has remained segregated from the substance use treatment field. This segregation may be contributing to health inequities in the substance use population and exacerbating the opiate overdose epidemic. This project will explore the creation of a new community health worker-certified peer recovery specialist training program that will prepare a workforce to address both chronic health conditions and provide peer recovery support through lived experience. The goals of the project are to 1) Expand the public health workforce to include the new dual certification in CHW-CPRS, 2) Provide enhanced skill training to current CHWs and CPRSs, 3) Increase employment readiness through placement in apprenticeship programs and experiential training, and 4) Enhance health equity in medically underserved communities of southern New Jersey by building awareness of employment opportunities and providing job placement assistance. Innovative activities include a partnership with both the New Jersey Department of Health and the Department of Human Services to implement the program, the development of a New Jersey Dual CHW-CPRS Collaborative that includes state leaders and individuals with lived experience to oversee the program, development of an apprenticeship model within a substance use treatment agency to demonstrate new job functions of the dually certified workforce, expanding experiential training to include mobile outreach units, creating a new Supporting Your Reco very for Life (SYRL)
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).