CHW Core Competencies

1. Advocacy Skills

• • Connect clients with the right health care
  • Involve the community in clients’ issues by promoting causes and using existing resources
  • Educate community members, legislators, the media and other professionals or organizations about clients’ issues
  • Use social media as an advocacy platform

2. Community Outreach And Engagement

• • Build and strengthen communities
  • Educate community members about programs and services that benefit them using community outreach
  • Understand various populations and how to communicate with them
  • Understand the needs of different populations
  • Learn to build collaborative relationships with colleagues and partners

3. Communication Skills

• • Learn about the different ways we communicate, including verbally and non-verbally
  • Use active and empathetic communication skills
  • Look out for and overcome barriers to communication
  • Be a clearer communicator, both when speaking and when writing
  • Connect clients to resources in their language, including medical interpreters and translated documents

4. Promoting Healthy Lifestyles/Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL)

• • Inform clients about the benefits of healthy eating and physical activity
  • Help clients manage or even avoid chronic illness by adopting healthy lifestyle habits
  • Improve health outcomes
  • Strengthen community linkages
  • Overcome barriers to healthy choices in environments, including food insecurity and other limitations

5. Cultural Competence And Responsiveness

• • Understand the role culture plays in a person’s health, including behaviors, language, customs, beliefs, and perspectives
  • Learn culturally appropriate and respectful ways of communicating
  • Use empathy to connect with people who come from various backgrounds
  • Deliver health care services that meet the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of patients to avoid health disparities
  • Build relationships with partners and colleagues to deliver culturally and linguistically appropriate services

6. Service Coordination Skills

• • Improve collaboration among team members
  • Appreciate the importance of support roles in case management
  • Learn to leverage community resources in patient care
  • Become an effective liaison with sources outside the community
  • Effectively manage cases from first instance to follow-up

7. Individual And Assessment Skills

• • Develop a keen understanding of contextual factors in assessing individuals within your community
  • Discover formal assessment methods to get actively involved in community initiatives
  • Feel confident designing, implementing, and interpreting individual assessments, including home evaluations
  • Learn to design, implement, and interpret community-wide assessments and initiatives
  • Help teams channel define unique needs within the community

8. Health Insurance Basics

• • Understand the local health insurance landscape
  • Help patients successfully navigate the intricacies of health insurance
  • Connect community members with the resources that best serve their needs and the key role preventive services play in long-term health
  • Provide accurate information about the types of insurance and the medical services available to the community, as well as potential costs
  • Inform the legal and technical aspects of the healthcare industry

9. Teaching Skills

• • Improve the ability to break complex topics into manageable information
  • Collect pertinent health information from and for community members
  • Plan and conduct health classes for varied audiences
  • Use cultural context to bring accurate, relevant information to community members
  • Measure community members’ understanding in key health issues to help predict outcomes

10. Organizational Skills

• • Organize schedules, shifts, and reporting on team members and priorities to maintain clear communication with supervisors or the work team
  • Plan goals for individuals and the organization, taking priorities, budget, and other aspects into account
  • Establish a safe space for coworkers with open, clear communication
  • Take charge of event organization, both internal and external (workshops, outreach efforts, educational presentations, and more)
  • Oversee project development and ensure that priorities and objectives are being met

11. Community Capacity Building

• • Help team and community members explore their capacities
  • Empower the community to make conscious choices
  • Build connections, support, and ally ship within communities
  • Help individuals advocate for themselves through empowerment and education
  • Lead community initiatives confidently, as well as identify local leaders and provide them with support

12. Professional Conduct And Interpersonal Skills

• • Learn to manage time, resources, and priorities on an individual basis while balancing stressors
  • Assess situations and determine risk factors and potential solutions
  • Utilize the available resources to their best potential, including technology, assessment tools, and more
  • Adhere to ethical and standards, including codes of ethics, laws, bills, and other institutional guidelines
  • Assume professional education and self-improvement as a pillar for personal development

13. Public Health

• • Develop a deep understanding of public health structure
  • Understand the role and responsibilities that fall on CHW’s shoulders as frontline health workers
  • Identify challenges and opportunities in communities by addressing the four pillars of public health
  • Combine theoretical knowledge and culturally relevant experience to understand public health on a local scale
  • Dive into the complex nature and root causes of some of today’s biggest health challenges, and explore how these affect healthcare services and populations