Kentucky Office of Community Health Workers
Community health workers (CHWs) support people and communities across the state of Kentucky to access resources, including quality health care and information. They work as a liaison between health organizations and the general public to provide relevant information and guide individuals toward a better understanding of health issues. The Kentucky Office of Community Health Workers (KOCHW) collaborated with the Human Development Institute’s Kentucky Inclusive Health Collaborative to enhance CHWs support for people with disabilities.
Listening Sessions
To identify existing gaps, two listening sessions were conducted in April 2022 with KOCHW Connection. Participants felt strongly that they needed resources, guidance, and direction to confidently and successfully support people with disabilities.
Identified Themes
Disability Etiquette
Fear of Inappropriate Interactions
Lack of Awareness
Limited Availability of Resources
Trainings
Lessons learned from the listening sessions informed the development of CHW-focused trainings on various disability and health topics. All asynchronous trainings will be available on the Training Finder Real-time Affiliate Integrated Network (TRAIN) platform soon.
Training Topics
Disability 101
Disability and Health Resources
Universal Design in Community Health Work
Guardianship & Supported Decision-Making with My Choice Kentucky
Workshops
Building on the developed trainings, HDI’s KIHC conducted regional in-person workshops with CHWs across Kentucky. These workshops provided supplemental experiential learning opportunities for CHWs to become masters of Universal Design and maximize accessibility with inclusive strategies for health messaging, programming, and general day-to-day work activities.
Resources
Universally Designed handouts and resources are available to CHWs to support meaningful engagement across a variety of health areas. To access the full resource library, CLICK HERE.
Coming Soon!
More CHW learning opportunities are on the way, including specific partnerships with local Special Olympics groups. Also forthcoming is a CEU elective for CHWs on supporting healthy relationships.
This project is part of a partnership with the Kentucky Department for Public Health Office of Community Health Workers and funded through the CDC “Community Health Workers for COVID-19 Response and Resilience” grant #DP21-2109. Grant aims to expand and elevate the CHW workforce through the overarching strategies of “Train, Deploy, and Engage
