Workshop series strengthens community health worker capacity

Community health workers and promotores (CHW/Ps) play a crucial role in disseminating reliable health and medical information and improving health and well-being in communities across the country. As the effectiveness of deploying CHW/Ps is increasingly better recognized, this important part of the public health workforce is in greater demand. Building the capacity of CHW/Ps to meet the needs of medically underrepresented communities is a priority. With an eye toward understanding what makes CHW/P trainings most effective and scalable, researchers from the California CEAL Regional Team worked with CHW/Ps to plan, host, and evaluate a series of capacity-building workshops.

The team initially offered 11 workshops in 3 Northern California counties, ultimately expanding the effort statewide with an additional 6 trainings. All told, 505 CHW/Ps representing 243 ZIP Codes across California participated in at least one training workshop. The workshops were conducted in Spanish and held on the Zoom platform (rather than as webinars) to maximize dialogue and interaction. They featured expertise from academic, community, and CHW/P speakers covering relevant health topics requested by CHW/Ps, such as resource navigation and mental health issues. Through feedback from CHW/Ps and community partners serving on advisory boards, the team compiled insights on tips and best practices for standing up similar workshops. The team also used a variety of methods to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of the trainings.

The researchers’ findings

• Nearly half of the participants (244 of the 505) indicated that they felt significant improvements in their levels of knowledge, skills, and confidence after the workshops compared to when they went in.
• Comments in the events’ Zoom chat message streams, as well as in evaluation surveys and listening sessions, pointed to the value of the session content and the ongoing need for the tailored, practical tips and resources highlighted in the trainings.
• The team attributed the success of the workshops to the co-development with CHW/Ps, the emphasis on building and maintaining trust with the partners, and the language and interactive format in which the trainings were held.

The evidence-based opportunities

• The team’s capacity-building model holds promise for future training and continuing education efforts. Once the infrastructure and workflows are established, the model can be scaled and adapted to cover a range of priority health topics and needs. This points to the model’s sustainability.
• Furthermore, once a training program is implemented, the engaged network of CHW/Ps can be rapidly activated, representing a promising avenue for disseminating evidence-based health information.