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COVID-19 Resources

Our mission is to ensure that the COVID-19 pandemic response and rebuilding efforts are equitable and effective and involve, fund, strengthen, and elevate trusted community-based workers.

The Vaccine Equity Cooperative, co-founded by NACHW, is launching one of the first online resource hubs designed specifically by, and for, community-based organizations and workforces (like community health workers, Promotores de Salud, and others), meant to support people in making informed decisions around the COVID-19 vaccine.

If you have resources designed for and by Community Health Workers, submit them to be featured on the VEC website!

✅ Community-specific vaccine resources
✅ Designed to support local community-based workforces
✅ Latest #COVID19vaccine updates

 www.vaccineequitycooperative.org

New HHS: COVID-19 Community Health Worker Toolkit

New The Arc: COVID-19 Resources for People With Disabilities, Families, and Service Providers

New NACHW COVID-19 Resources 2 Pager– A summary of our growing COVID publications, advisories, and initiatives.

NACHW National Policy Platform This document was created over the past year of town hall calls with over 30 CHW Associations, 3 national CHW polls, numerous partner meetings, member input on the Biden administration’s national plan to Build Back Better and in consultation with many of you. It centers many of the policies and best practices that are already nationally endorsed within our field and can be applied to COVID-19 response efforts as well as long term policy development.

CDC CHW Awareness Event Presentations on COVID-19

Advancing CHW Engagement in COVID-19 Response Strategies: provides practical guidance to conceptualize and operationalize CHW and CHW Network engagement. A matrix of areas of engagement and a continuum of engagement (low/harmful to robust) is offered for local, state and national actors to consider who want to amplify the roles and capacity of the CHW workforce. Developed in partnership with the Community Based Workforce Alliance.

Insights on COVID-19 From Community Health Worker State Leaders, Journal of Ambulatory Care Management October/December 2020 – Volume 43 Issue 4 – p 268-277.

NACHW Presents: Top COVID-19 Resources for CHWs and Community Health Workers Strengthen COVID-19 Response Download these for sharing.

Three Ways to Amplify CHWs During COVID-19:AmplifyingCHWsCOVID19-002 endorsed by US and Global Partners: Health Leads, Health Begins, Partners in Health, Last Mile Health, the Penn Center for CHWs, Community Health Acceleration Project at the WHO.

NACHW presents Three Ways to Support Asian American and Pacific Islander Communities

Partner with CHWs During COVID-19:NACHW Partner with CHWs COVID19

Health Affairs May 6, 2020 Blog: To Strengthen Public Health Response to COVID-19 We Need CHWs: https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20200504.336184/full/

Centers for Disease Control and NACHW: What CHWs need to know about COVID-19: CDC and NACHW_COVID and CHWs_Webinar Slides_4.28.2020

Checklist for Administrators, Managers, and Clinicians to Integrate Community Health Workers in Vaccine Outreach, Acceptance, and Distribution StrategiesPrepared for the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved by the National Association of Community Health Workers April 2021

CDC Webinars: Community Health Workers and COVID-19 response

National Association of Community Health Workers, collaborated with CDC to provide two webinars (one English, one Spanish) about how community health workers (CHWs) can contribute to the COVID-19 response.

Click here to see the webinar presented in Spanish.

Click here to see the webinar presented in English.

Community Based Workforce Alliance 

Co-founded by NACHW, our mission is to ensure that the COVID-19 pandemic response and rebuilding efforts are equitable and effective and involve, fund, strengthen, and elevate trusted community-based workers. The members of the Community-Based Workforce Alliance believe and are accountable for the following values: 

  • We affirm the dignity and humanity of all human beings. 
  • We demonstrate racial equity and pursue anti-racist action. 
  • We amplify and center the expertise of the Community-Based Workforce. 
  • We prioritize capacity building, resource sharing, and investment with community-based community-led organizations. 
  • We commit to and create space for transparency and candor. 
  • We embrace shared learning and nimbleness.

Advancing CHW Engagement in COVID-19 Response Strategies: A Playbook for Local Health Department Strategies in the United States. Presented by The National Community-Based Workforce Alliance.

Advancing CHW Engagement in COVID-19 Response Strategies: provides practical guidance to conceptualize and operationalize CHW and CHW Network engagement. A matrix of areas of engagement and a continuum of engagement (low/harmful to robust) is offered for local, state and national actors to consider who want to amplify the roles and capacity of the CHW workforce. Developed in partnership with the Community Based Workforce Alliance.

CDC- Resources for Community Health Workers, Community Health Representatives, and Health Promoters

The CDC, in partnership with NACHW, created this site to provide CHWs with resources to support their work, as well as information for their employers to better ensure the safety of CHWs in the community. State and local health departments also may find these resources beneficial to share with local programs and funding recipients. Resources from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), federal agencies, and external organizations are included to ensure CHWs and their employers have easy access to essential information in one location.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/community-health-workers/index.html 

Partners in Health’s Reaching Equity through Community Based Vaccination Engagement and Recovery (RECOVER)

NACHW is an advisory partner in Partners in Health’s Reaching Equity through Community Based Vaccination Engagement and Recovery (RECOVER) an initiative to mobilize the U.S. community health workforce and accelerate vaccine uptake. The following narrative provides a description of how PIH, together with national, regional, and local partners, will address COVID-19 related health disparities and advance health equity. This is a six-month grant funded by Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) Funding Opportunity Number: HRSA-21-136 Community-Based Workforce for COVID-19 Vaccine Outreach.


CDC 2110 Training and Technical Assistance Grant

NACHW will be providing technical assistance for the recipient of the CDC 2110 Training and Technical Assistance grant.


Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care: Sprint to Accelerate Vaccination Equitably (SAVE) in Community & Rural Health

As community and rural health practices navigate the current pandemic landscape, the new COVID vaccines bring both hope and a new set of challenges. Over the past year COVID cast a long overdue spotlight on health equity by highlighting the massively disparate health outcomes by race and ethnicity in the US. Therefore, in addition to the logistics of safe administration and storage of the vaccine, practices are committed to developing robust strategies and partnerships to ensure the maximum equitable immunization of staff members and patients. This fast-paced and interactive program includes:

  • Weekly hour-long webinars featuring content, and coaching from national primary care experts;
  • Interactive discussions and resource-sharing with peer practices from across the country and;
  • Short, relevant weekly assignments to support your practice’s specific program goals.

The Sprint will provide participating teams with guidance for how to partner with patients and community leaders to increase COVID immunization rates for staff and patients. Teams will leave with tools and templates for ongoing improvement and a plan for how to accelerate the work in the months ahead.


Rockefeller Foundation-US Equitable Vaccine Impact Strategy 

The Rockefeller Foundation announces the launch of a historic $20 million Equity-First Vaccination Initiative to improve the vaccination rate among communities of color, which have been disproportionately impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Representing less than one-third of the 63 million people who are now fully vaccinated in the United States, communities of color are twice as likely to die from Covid-19 and three times as likely to be hospitalized as white Americans. To close this gap, the Foundation will initially collaborate with five organizations to deploy equity-first, hyper-local public health interventions in five U.S. cities: Baltimore, Md.; Chicago, Ill.; Houston, Texas; Newark, N.J.; Oakland, Calif. During the second phase of the Initiative, the Foundation will collaborate with several national organizations to take lessons learned from the five cities and ensure that at least 70 million people of color are vaccinated by July 2021. NACHW is a strategic advisor in the initiative. 


National COVID-19 Resiliency Network (NCRN)  

The MSM’s National COVID-19 Resiliency Network (NCRN) offers individuals and families access to new COVID-19 related resources to help reduce the negative impact of the pandemic on communities. The NCRN is created for the community, by the community to ensure the diverse needs of our nation are understood and addressed.

Learn more and sign up to become a partner as a Community Member or Community Organization at their website: https://ncrn.msm.edu/s/?language=en_US

Full Report: An Environmental Scan to Inform CHW Strategies Within the Morehouse NCRN

In collaboration with the MSM’s National COVID-19 Resiliency Network (NCRN), NACHW conducted an Environmental Scan of the key focus areas and populations of the NCRN initiative. The report begins with recommendations for the initiative and moves into specific analysis of the focus area and populations of NCRN. Learn more about NCRN in later sections.


Families USA’s Vaccine Equity Advisory Committee

NACHW serves on Families USA’s Vaccine Equity Advisory Committee which informs their strategic initiative to advocate for and achieve policy changes that: make COVID-19 vaccine distribution more equitable, and build a foundation to address long-standing, structural health inequities.

NEW! Community Health Workers & Pharmacists: Their Frontline Role in the Response to COVID-19 Webinar recording. Hosted by the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM). 

Insights on COVID-19 From Community Health Worker State Leaders, Journal of Ambulatory Care Management October/December 2020 – Volume 43 Issue 4 – p 268-277.

CHWs and COVID19 RESPONSE: CHWS and pandemic preparedness from Frontiers in Public Health.

How CHWs can Help in the Pandemic: Download these slides or video to learn skills to help those who are at risk.

The Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) initiative is using clinical trials to investigate and develop vaccines and possible treatments for patients with mild to life-threatening symptoms of COVID-19. ACTIV is a public-private partnership coordinated by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health together with agencies in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, academia, philanthropic organizations, and various biopharmaceutical companies. The ACTIV clinical trials aim to identify therapies that could decrease serious illness and ultimately prevent deaths from COVID-19.

CombatCOVID.hhs.gov and CombateCOVID.hhs.gov (en español) have up-to-date information in English and Spanish about vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and possible treatments being tested in the ACTIV clinical trials. For assistance with clinical trial enrollment and eligibility questions, call 1-877-414-8106 or visit the Combat COVID Clinical Trials page for a live chat.

Clinical trials are going on now. Stay informed about the treatments they’re exploring and share this information with people in your community who are seeking options for COVID-19 treatment.

The COVID-19 Digital Classroom launches 8 courses. Additionally, across all courses are video animations to help reinforce key concepts.

  • These animations are also available in Arabic, French, Hindi, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swahili on our YouTube page. If you would like to share this animation with your community offline, you can download it from the COVID-19 Library.

Community Health Worker COVID-19 Online Training Program: Free CHWs and COVID-19 online training resource. Offered in four languages (English, Spanish, French and Arabic) with a fifth language (Lingala) being added soon.

Contact Tracing Training: This training plan provides foundational COVID-19 information for individuals assisting in the COVID-19 response. The plan includes required, recommended, and supplemental training. After completing this training, responders will be better prepared to receive specialized training required by the jurisdictions for the role they are serving (e.g. contact tracers, case investigators, epidemiologists, data analysts, etc.)

Mental Health Policies and Protections: Read this COVID-19 and Mental Health SUD Letter NACHW Supported sent to VP from NACHW and other national orgs.

Take Care of Your Behavioral Health: Consider typical reactions to stressful situations, and ways to support yourself and your community during social distancing, quarantine and isolation from SAMHSA

Free Hotline: Connect to SAMHSA’s Disaster Distress resource page or call the Helpline at 1-800-985-5990 to get 24/7, 365-day-a-year crisis counseling and support to people experiencing emotional distress related to natural or human-caused disasters.

Mental Health Supports: Consider these steps to care for yourself while practicing physical distancing.

Recovery and Social Distancing: Read and share this guidance for people in recovery from substance use from Health Resources in Action.

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