Community Health Workers, Promotores & Representatives
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Update
After hearing from community partners about the need for additional stakeholder engagement on the rollout of the CHW/P/R certificate program in November 2023, the California Health and Human Services Agency (CalHHS), HCAI, and DHCS announced a pause to the July 2023 HCAI guidance letter and that it would conduct a series of dialogue sessions to engage stakeholders about the CHW/P/R certificate program. The dialogues will run through early/mid 2024.
The purpose of conducting the dialogues is to communicate the state’s vision for supporting and scaling CHW/P/R services in the state, and to engage community partners on how to achieve that vision. We also are seeking to hear from community partners about their concerns regarding the certificate program as set out in HCAI’s July 2023 guidance letter.
For further information about the current pause on the guidance letter and about the dialogues, please see the FAQ page.
Upcoming Community Dialogue Sessions
Community Dialogue Session Hosted By: Alameda County Health
Date: May 1, 2024 | 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. (In-Person) | Location: 1100 San Leandro Blvd, 1st Floor, Redwood Room San Leandro, CA 94577
Community Dialogue Session Hosted By: Roots Community Health Center
Date: May 2, 2024 | 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. (In-Person) | Location: 3830 MacArthur Blvd Oakland, CA 94605
Community Dialogue Session Hosted By: The Latina Center and Vision y Compromiso
Date: May 6, 2024 | 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. (Virtual in Spanish)
Community Dialogue Session Hosted By: San Diego Wellness Collaborative
Date: May 13, 2024 | 8:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. (Virtual in English)
The NorCal Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Community Dialogue Hosted by: The Chinese Community Health Resource Center
POSTPONED: New Date and Time coming soon!
Background
Community Health Workers, Promotores, and Representatives (CHW/P/Rs) have long provided critical preventive, promotive, and referral services for communities in California that have been historically marginalized and disconnected from the health system. CHW/P/Rs speak a variety of languages and serve diverse communities with diverse needs across the state. HCAI’s CHW/P/R workforce initiative, as part of the Workforce for a Healthy California initiative, aims to expand and support the CHW/P/R workforce. For further background, see Statute 18998 authorizing the CHW/P/R.
In order to sustainably expand CHW/P/R services across the state, funding for those services needs to be reliably available. To address this, starting July 1, 2022, the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) added CHW/P/R work as a billable service to Medi-Cal.
On July 1, 2023, following a lengthy stakeholder engagement process and in line with statutory requirements, HCAI issued a guidance letter outlining the statewide requirements for: a state-issued CHW/P/R Certificate, certificate renewal, and for state-issued specialty certificates, as well as the requirements for recognizing the experience of existing CHW/P/Rs. This letter also provided statewide requirements for CHW/P/R training programs to become approved training programs.
Contact Us
- Email: CHW@hcai.ca.gov
- Phone: (916) 326-3700
Subscribe
To receive updates regarding the CHW/P/R initiative specifically, please email CHW@hcai.ca.gov and share your name, affiliation, and email. You will be added to a listserv through which periodic updates and invitations for engagement are shared.
Join HCAI’s Workforce Programs Update mailing list to receive announcements on all of HCAI’s programs. See the latest issue.