Sophia O’Hara, Program Manager
As the Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics prepares to launch a Pediatric Community Health Worker Learning Collaborative (CHW LC) next month, extensive work has already been undertaken to collaborate with incumbent Community Health Workers (CHWs), as well as adolescent and behavioral health pediatric faculty, collect and compile feedback from CHWs in training, and partner with numerous community organizations. This collaborative will ensure that CHWs are accepted by their teams, have role clarity, and appropriately share care with medical providers once on the job.
Support from the Nesholm Family Foundation has been instrumental in WCAAP’s ability to effectively prepare the learning collaborative curriculum and content in a timely manner, providing hands-on help to this workforce and clinics before our contract and additional funding via the Washington Department of Health (as a result of the 2022-2023 state legislative session) moves into place later this summer.
During 2023-2024 Pediatric learning collaborative preparation, WCAAP accomplished:
- Formed a Learning Collaborative leadership team, including incumbent community health workers, community partners and pediatric faculty.
- Facilitated weekly Learning Collaborative leadership team meetings March through July, 2023.
- Conducted site interviews with 31 Pediatric CHWs and 24 supervisors from 14 clinics (or 22 physical clinical sites) employing new Pediatric CHWs through HCA grant-funding.
- Analyzed the site-interview data to inform the CHW Learning Collaborative curriculum and focus.
- Convened 36 CHWs from 24 clinics on July 17 to garner further input on the Learning Collaborative curriculum, sharing with these CHWs the findings from the interviews.
- Hosted an online forum, “Basecamp”, for CHWs to connect, communicate, and support one another; their connections and conversations also inform Learning Collaborative focus and curriculum.