Organizing a chw training program: Lessons from Massachusetts health reform

In 2006, then-Gov. Mitt Romney signed Massachusetts' comprehensive health reform designed to provide near-universal health insurance coverage for state residents. Building on a long history of health reform efforts, the state embarked on an ambitious plan to promote shared individual, employer, and government responsibility. This presentation will summarize the several ways in which Massachusetts CHWs played a key role in the successful implementation of the law, and also discuss how health reform created important opportunities for policy initiatives to advance the workforce through training, certification and integration into emerging models of care. This session will illustrate how the state public health department collaborated with the Massachusetts Association of Community Health Workers to respond to policy opportunities presented by the multiple phases of Massachusetts health reform to advance the CHW workforce and its unique contribution to increasing access, strengthening prevention, improving health and reducing health disparities.