Category: Health, Community Organizing Category: Health, Community Organizing (show less) Other: Illinois Other: Illinois (show less)

This presentation will provide practice-informed and evaluated best practices for enhancing collaboration between social workers and community health workers to effectively disseminate community-integrated programming and group interventions for mental, emotional, and physical health. More organizations are employing or working with community health workers (CHWs) to better help their communities and address health-related social needs. The American Public Health Association defines a CHW as “a frontline public health worker who is a trusted member of and/or has an unusually close understanding of the community served. This trusting relationship enables the worker to serve as a liaison/link/intermediary between health/social services and the community to facilitate access to services and improve the quality and cultural competence of service delivery.” Through this presentation, we will discuss strategies and case studies that highlight effective collaboration between CHWs and social workers in the field, working together to address the needs of individuals facing barriers to health care access, including cultural practices, race, ethnicity, language, literacy, geography, income, ability, and other related factors. In particular, we will look at two care management models and group intervention models that center CHW and SW collaboration. The first deals with the CHW-based identification and escalation of social needs issues to social workers for enhanced care management. The second oversees the training and co-facilitation of CHWs and SWs in group interventions throughout the community for chronic condition management, falls prevention, emotional wellness, social isolation and loneliness, pain management, and cancer survivorship. Through these models, we will explore the various roles CHWs can hold, their utility in multiple systems, and their effective collaboration with social work.