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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, August 10, 2017 Contact: 219-462-2940 Regional Workforce Board Provides Support to Upskill Community Health Workers (Northwest Indiana) The Northwest Indiana Workforce Board (NWIWB) recently provi ...   Read More »

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Contact: 219-462-2940

Regional Workforce Board Provides Support to Upskill Community Health Workers

(Northwest Indiana) The Northwest Indiana Workforce Board (NWIWB) recently provided support for the implementation of Esperanza Ministries application for Skill Up! Indiana–Round 2 funding from the Department of Workforce Development. The NWIWB worked in collaboration with fund recipients Health Visions Midwest and Esperanza Ministries to implement and support training initiatives for Community Health Workers.

Community Health Workers (CHW) are the trusted frontline public health workers who serve as a liaison/link/intermediary between health/social services and the community to facilitate access to services and improve the quality and cultural competence of service delivery. A CHW also builds individual and community capacity by increasing health knowledge and self-sufficiency through a range of activities such as outreach, community education, informal counseling, social support and advocacy.

The Northwest Indiana funded program served two purposes: improving the workers’ skills and curtailing re-admittance at local healthcare providers. Since providers are not reimbursed for re-admitted patients, this program was important to improving the bottom line for the region’s healthcare providers. The community health workers were trained to ensure that patient home plans were working and to connect patients with resources so that they did not have to return to the healthcare facility unnecessarily. The initiative brought together healthcare employers to identify best practices and attracted new workers into the field through internships and career fairs.

The NWIWB provided assistance in the following ways:

– Support to training participants in the areas of resume writing and interviewing
– Access to employment opportunities where participants can use their newly gained skills
– Alignment of business engagement with training and internship opportunities for participants
– Establishing business partnerships to foster the growth of the community health worker program

For further information on NWIWB, call 219-462-2940.

The Northwest Indiana Workforce Board (NWIWB) is a board of business, education, labor, community, and economic development leaders responsible for the strategic vision of workforce development and governance of WorkOne in Northwest Indiana. They are also responsible for managing connections to key resources in the workforce and education arena as well as supporting efforts on programming that plant and nurture the seed of entrepreneurship. The board works to determine current and future skill needs together with economic developers, employers, and economists. The NWIWB represents Jasper, Lake, La Porte, Newton, Porter, Pulaski, and Starke counties.