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The Diabetes Educator

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Health Promotion Practice
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CHWs Get Credit: A 10-Year History of the First College-Credit Certificate for Community Health Workers in the United States

Mary Beth Love, PhD

Department of Health Education and Community Health Works in San Francisco, California.

Vicki Legion, MPH

Community Health Works in San Francisco, California.

Janet K. Shim, MPP

Community Health Works in San Francisco, California.

Cindy Tsai

Community Health Works in San Francisco, California.

Vickie Quijano, MPH

Department of Health Education at San Francisco State University in San Francisco, California.

Catherine Davis, MA

Community Health Works in San Francisco, California.

Community health workers have become increasingly important in the U.S. health care system, playing a significant role in basic health promotion and care coordination; however, their status and visibility have not kept pace with their wider use. A major impediment has been the absence of systematic preparation—the field needs standardized education in programs that emphasize the actual skills and knowledge used by community health workers, programs that attract and retain nontraditional students from underserved communities and that foster professional advancement. This article chronicles the 10-year history of the first college credit-bearing community health worker certificate program in the country to address this need. Systematic research resulted in a program centered on the core competencies universally practiced by community health workers regardless of their topical focus. The certificate program combines performance-based methods with popular education into an innovative pedagogical approach that teaches skills, while solidifying, contextualizing, and enhancing crucial experiential knowledge. Program outcomes validate the approach.

Key Words: community health workers • community colleges • evaluation of training • health promotion • health workers • outreach • performance-based training • popular education • training

Health Promotion Practice, Vol. 5, No. 4, 418-428 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/1524839903260142
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