Strengthening the Healthy Start Workforce: A Mixed-Methods Study to Understand the Roles of Community Health Workers in Healthy Start and Inform the Development of a Standardized Training Program

Healthy Start (HS) is dedicated to preventing infant mortality, improving birth outcomes, and reducing disparities in maternal and infant health. This study examined how Health Start community health workers (CHW), as critical members of the workforce, serve families and communities in order to inform the development of a CHW training program to advance program goals. The results led to a tailored set of competencies that serve as the foundation for a Healthy Stary CHW training program, which has the capacity to advance strategic goals for HS by strengthening HS CHWs’ capacity nationwide to respond to complex participant needs.

Authors: Katherine Rachel DeAngelis, Katelyn Flaherty Doré, Deborah Dean, Paul Osterman, JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc., 2017