CHW Network of Buffalo
Community Health Workers are OF and FROM the communities they serve. This trusting relationship enables the worker to serve as a liaison between health/social services and the community to facilitate access to services and improve the quality and cultural competence of service delivery.
What is a CHW?
"A community health worker is a frontline public health worker who is a trusted member of and/or has an unusually close understanding of the community served — serving as a liaison between health/social services and the community."
— American Public Health Association
What do CHWs do?
CHWs build individual and community capacity through outreach, community education, informal counseling, social support and advocacy — turning lived experience into community power.
Common Questions about CHWs
- Cultural Mediation Among Individuals, Communities, and Health and Social Service Systems
- Providing Culturally Appropriate Health Education and Information
- Care Coordination, Case Management, and System Navigation
- Providing Coaching and Support
- Advocating for Individuals and Communities
- Building Individual and Community Capacity
- Providing Direct Service
- Implementing Individual and Community Assessments
- Conducting Outreach
- Participating in Evaluation and Research
- Community Health Worker
- Outreach Worker
- Service Coordinator
- Case Manager
- Community Educator
- Advocate
- Community Engagement Coordinator
- Patient Navigator
- Counselor
- Youth Coordinator
- Parent Facilitator
- Peer Educator
What is the impact of CHWs?
"One of my first clients was a teenage mother... I helped the mother get diapers, clothes, and a bassinet. She told me that I had given her something bigger than the 'stuff' — I had given her hope."— Nadia Pizzaro, Outreach Worker/Housing Coordinator, American Red Cross
"You made me feel like a human again for the first time in a long time."— John, Matt Urban Hope Center client
"The impact of parents and students creating a healthier school environment in our District cannot be underestimated."— Assunta Ventresca, Former Director of Health Related Services, BPS
