Community Health Worker Training Program - Project Director: Tonya Elkins, MSW, LAPSW, CLC, IMH-E® Applicant Organization: Vanderbilt University School of Nursing Address: 461 21st Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37240 Contact Phone Numbers: (O) 615-343-4513; (F) 615-322-1708 Email: tonya.elkins@vanderbilt.edu; Website: https://nursing.vanderbilt.edu Program Funds Requested: $3,000,000 Funding Request: We request Statutory Funding Preference The HHS/HRSA clinical priorities: Telehealth/Telemedicine, Childhood Obesity, Rural Health, Opioids/Substance Use, and COVID19 Pandemic/Public Health Emergency Vanderbilt University School of Nursing (VUSN) seeks funding to implement a Community Health Worker Training Program targeting underserved communities. VUSN has extensive resources and knowledge pertinent to this project, including implementation of the Maternal Infant Health Outreach Worker (MIHOW) program, a community health worker (CHW) based intervention with decades of experience training CHWs and positively impacting maternal and child health outcomes in rural and underserved urban areas. The primary purpose of the Community Health Worker Training Program of Tennessee (CHWTPT) at VUSN is to increase the quantity and quality of certified community health workers (CHWs) and health support workers working in Tennessee through partnership with the Tennessee Community Health Worker Association (TNCHWA). The specific aims are to build, support, and sustain a long-standing CHW training program through the TNCHWA through the development and implementation of a training to employment pathway for certified CHWs through: Curriculum development: VUSN will collaborate with the Tennessee Community Health Worker Association (TNCHWA) to enhance its current MIHOW training curriculum into a curriculum that can be used to train and certify new and existing CHWs across Tennessee to work in a variety of settings such as social service agencies, clinics, hospitals, schools and health departments. Modules will be developed and enhanced by VUSN faculty, TNCHWA leadership, experts in healthcare and current CHWs. Training: Training will be implemented via VUSN’s Destiny One/Brightspace Learning Platform and interactive sessions with TNCHWA trainers and content experts. Up to 90 new or existing CHW trainees from diverse backgrounds in Tennessee who come from the communities/ populations they will serve will be recruited each year to participate in the didactic and experiential (hands-on) learning. Certification: Existing CHWs will receive certification based on training completion and hours worked. New CHWs will complete either a field placement (8 weeks) or apprenticeship (one year) with a minimum of a 75% credentialing rate (68 credentialed CHWs) in collaboration with TNCHWA. (<=20 upskill and 70 field placement or apprenticeship). The collaboration will develop a recruitment network with Tennessee Social Service and Community/Rural Health Center Organizations for Field Placements (FP) and Apprenticeships. The goal is to ensure that 75% of CHWTPT graduates have employment support aligned with their unique community. Funding preference – VUSN requests statutory funding preference based on its track record of training CHWs from disadvantaged backgrounds who continue to work in medically underserved communities (see Attachment 7).
