Policies
NACHW CHW National Policy Platform (English & Spanish)
It is with great excitement that we share with you all the NACHW National Policy Platform. This document is an important tool to promote national professional identity, leadership and capacity of CHWs and our Associations.
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.
Plataforma de Política Nacional de NACHW
Es con gran entusiasmo que compartimos con todos ustedes la Plataforma de política nacional de NACHW. Este documento es una herramienta importante para promover la identidad profesional nacional, el liderazgo y la capacidad de los CHW y nuestras Asociaciones.
Este documento fue creado durante el año pasado de las reuniones con más de 30 asociaciones de CHW, 3 encuestas nacionales de CHW, numerosas reuniones de socios, aportes de miembros sobre el plan nacional de la administración Biden para reconstruir mejor y en consulta con muchos de ustedes. Centra muchas de las políticas y mejores prácticas que ya están respaldadas a nivel nacional dentro de nuestro campo y se pueden aplicar a los esfuerzos de respuesta a COVID-19, así como al desarrollo de políticas a largo plazo.
National CHW Policy Developments:
NACHW Response
Response to Proposed Rule [CMS-1784-P] Medicare and Medicaid Programs. Our recommendations address opportunities to acknowledge, advance, and sustain the community health worker (CHW) profession through increased professional recognition and integration of CHW leadership and the capacity of our workforce to improve Medicare services.
NEW APHA CHW Policy
A Strategy to Address Racism and Violence as Public Health Priorities: Community Health Workers Advancing Equity & Violence Prevention
NACHW’S Response
Opportunities and challenges for federal CHW financing, infrastructure, and capacity building efforts
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Request for Information on CHW Roles in Medicare (file codes CMS 4203 NC and CMS 1770 P)
Proposed amendment to the Public Health Service Act with respect to awards to support community health workers and community health H.R. 8151 and S.3479
Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) Community Health Worker Training Program (Funding Opportunity HRSA 22 124)
CHW Policy Reports
NEW! Community Champions and COVID-19 Vaccination
Author: Aurora GrantWingate, Neena Schultz, Denise Smith
Contributors: Emauri Watson
This report provides a snapshot of respondent perspectives from individual, community and system-levels, as well as challenges, bright spots and recommendations in vaccine distribution from 192 self-identified community health workers, contact tracers and community and organizational leaders.
———
Statewide Training Approaches for Community Health Workers
Author: Theresa H. Mason, Carl H. Rush, Meredith K. Sugarman
Contributors: Emauri Watson, CHW
This report provides examples of the use of the NACHW CHW Document Resource Center by investigating the topic of setting standards for statewide core training for community health workers.
———
Assessing the Community Health Worker (CHW) Workforce at the State and Local Level
Author: Meredith Sugarman
Contributors: Carl Rush, Theresa Mason, Bernadine Mavhungu
This report provides an example of the use of the NACHW CHW Document Resource Center by describing current efforts and potential support available to state and local health departments, CHW professional organizations, and other stakeholders to measure and assess the CHW workforce.
———
From Crisis to Opportunity: Resources and Guidance that CHWs Want from Employers During the Pandemic
Authors: Denise Octavia Smith, Neena Schultz
This report summarizes the results of a survey that collected CHW responses over three weeks in June 2020 to understand the needs of CHWs and how employers can best support CHWs to protect themselves, provide services safely and adapt services to the changing environment.
FULL REPORT | REPORT ONE PAGER
———
Sustainable Financing of Community Health Workers Employment
Author: Carl Rush
Contributors: Denise Octavia Smith, Caitlin Allen, Bernadine Mavhungu
This report summarizes approaches to financing programs engaging and supporting CHWs, which have been proposed by multiple organizations and research studies from 2001 to the present.
REPORT BRIEF | FULL REPORT | WEBINAR BY AUTHOR CARL RUSH
CHW Resource Center
This is the nation’s largest searchable collection of documents on policies around CHWs (mainly on the state level).
Who should use it? Documents found in this resource center are most useful for: state government officials; CHW leaders; current and potential employers and payers for CHWs; other individuals and stakeholder organizations involved in advancing and/or considering policies on CHWs. This resource center is not a resource for individual CHWs looking for tools to inform or improve their practice.
Who should use it? A new report released from NACHW on Sustainable Financing for Community Health Workers is now available.
CHW Standard Occupational Classification
NACHW proudly recognizes the organizing and advocacy work that CHWs nationwide undertook to help secure our unique Standard Occupational Classification (#21-1094) under the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Bureau of Labor Statistics. We encourage CHWs and allies to support accurate tracking of the CHW workforce by ensuring that CHWs are appropriately classified as such — particularly in the 2020 Census. We also encourage CHWs and allies to participate in ongoing opportunities to engage with the DOL regarding the workforce definition and tracking. The Department of Labor’s CHW page can be found here.
Community Health Worker Core Consensus (C3) Project
NACHW recognizes and affirms the purpose of the Community Health Worker Core Consensus (C3) Project — to gather information from CHWs in many different roles and settings across the U.S. about the wide range of activities they conduct and the skills and personal qualities they apply to those activities. C3 included significant CHW leadership and engaged diverse CHWs, CHW networks, and CHW allies across the country. NACHW believes the information presented by C3 can serve as a basis for ongoing dialogue with CHWs and CHW allies to advance a better understanding of the full potential of diverse CHWs to improve health and strengthen communities.
CHW Common Indicators Project
The purpose of the CHW Common Indicators (CI) Project is to contribute to the integrity, sustainability and viability of CHW programs through the collaborative development and adoption of a set of common process and outcome constructs and indicators for CHW practice. The CI Project uses popular (people’s) education to promote participation, balance power and center CHW leadership. Over the past 5 years, the project has built a national constituency of over 150 CHWs, CHW program staff, and CHW researchers and evaluators committed to project objectives. Through a series of stakeholder engagement activities, project partners have identified a list of 24 constructs and developed indicators for 10 of the constructs. Currently, project partners are beginning to pilot the indicators, while continuing to strengthen their CHW-led and community-based project methodology, and building the infrastructure to allow them to aggregate, analyze and report data from across regions.
Request for NACHW Policy Review Form:
Please fill out this form if you would like to request input from NACHW on a state-level or organizational policy, paper, position statement, or another related item. You can also use this form to request NACHW’s participation in a CHW policy-related workgroup, roundtable, or other CHW policy-related event. Please note the following:
- Due to capacity constraints, we can take on a limited number of requests.
- We will prioritize and make every effort to work on requests from NACHW members, community-based organizations (CBOs), and CHW Networks (defined as state/regional organizations, associations, or coalitions comprised of 50% or more of CHWs in leadership and membership, and whose mission and activities focus on CHW training, workforce development, mentoring, member mobilization, and cross-sector networking, and advocacy).
- We will notify you with an update and some next steps within five business days.
- We may follow up with additional questions. Requests are considered incomplete until we receive all information necessary to process your request.
- Please keep in mind that NACHW does not endorse individual training programs, curricula, or candidates for any political office.
NACHW does not endorse any specific CHW training program or curriculum. We encourage CHWs and other stakeholders seeking training to look for CHW training and educational based on nationally recognized competencies, that include CHWs in development of their curricula, including CHWs as faculty and that use adult educational techniques to draw on trainees’ existing knowledge and life experiences.
Ready to Take Action?
You can send a message to your representatives letting them know how important this issue is by clicking the button below.
