Supporting a Community Health Worker (CHW) Network

The Challenge: How to build a comprehensive CHW network in Texas?

In collaboration with the Health Equity Collective, the following video has been developed to support building—and supporting—a comprehensive CHW Network.

The UTHealth Houston School of Public Health CHW Training Program is certified under the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) to provide certification training and continuing education for CHWs and Instructors.

This collective of educators, researchers, students, and instructional designers seeks to strengthen the CHW workforce through specialized training, curriculum development, and collaboration with CHW-supporting organizations.

In 2022, The Health Equity Collective (HEC), a multi-sector systems-level collective impact coalition in the Greater Houston region, partnered with the City of Houston Health Department to launch a two-year effort to implement a comprehensive approach towards strengthening the CHW workforce infrastructure to advance equity.

UTHealth Houston — one of the most comprehensive academic health science centers in the United States — conducted a study to better understand the ecosystem of need, support, training, and deployment of CHWs in Texas.

This included promoting parity in living wages, providing a career pipeline for further advancement, recruiting from ethnically and racially diverse communities, and offering full-time employment opportunities with benefits.

The researchers’ baseline assessment findings highlight the challenges CHWs face, including underpayment, burnout, variability in job definitions, and a lack of career development pathways and support within the systems they are hired into.

These issues and challenges stress the need for better support systems for these essential health workers.

The Center for Health Equity research team engaged Alphachimp to help facilitate, document, and visualize the CHW journey.

What did the Journey Mapping Process look like?

This multi-stage visualization process resulted in several iterations of “journey maps” through interviews, brainstorming workshops, and an iterative design process.

For a behind-the-scenes look at the stakeholder workshops and creative process, click here.

More information: https://www.bit.ly/UTHealth-CHW