The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #65960

Yin Yan Leung, MPH¹, Linette M. Escobar, MA², Patricia Erwin, MPH¹, Senad Kulenovic¹, Vanja Danilovic-Jones¹, and Alexander Mosalov². (1) Newcomers Health Program, San Francisco Department of Public Health, 1490 Mason Street #107, San Francisco, CA 94133-4222, (415) 705-8553, yinyleung@yahoo.com, (2) SUNSET Russian Tobacco Education Project, Bay Area Community Resources, 1351 24th Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94122

Community Health Outreach Workers (CHOWs) from refugee/immigrant communities being served are one of the most important keys to success in creating a culturally competent community based program. In order to respond to the special challenges faced by the San Francisco Russian-speaking and Bosnian immigrant communities, Newcomers Health Program developed two community-based health programs utilizing CHOWs to respond to the needs of these communities. In this interactive presentation, we will discuss how to outreach for these CHOW positions and support career development in a field and language that is often completely new to the individual. We will brainstorm the gamut of skills required for these positions from basic record keeping to trauma survivor support and outreach, and discuss cost effective ways to train CHOWs. Since our staff comes from a variety of countries with diverse political, cultural and religious backgrounds, we will discuss how we support teambuilding across projects, build collaboration and share resources in different ethnic communities. As part of this presentation, we will demonstrate team-building exercises that have been particularly popular or insightful to the CHOWs. We will also highlight our programs and their culturally appropriate approaches to community capacity building, leadership development, collaboration with public health providers, behavior change strategies, and education and evaluation methods. Recommendations for applying similar approaches and working with CHOWs in other newcomer communities will also be discussed.

Learning Objectives:

• At the conclusion of the session, the participants will be able to:
• · List at least two strategies for outreaching for CHOW positions in new immigrant communities;
• · Identify at least three skills needed by CHOWs to be successful and how to build those skills;
• · List at least two ways of building a team and developing collaboration among CHOWs from different cultures.

Keywords: Community Health Promoters, Immigrants

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.