Healthy & Strong: The role of community health workers in training and mentoring the next generation of health professionals

Background: Historically, community health workers (promotoras) have been employed as liaisons and intermediaries between health and social services and the community. To capitalize on the community expertise and cultural assets of promotoras, a model was developed wherein promotorasgo beyond serving as a link in the healthcare team to playing a vital role in the training of emerging health professionals.

Methods: Four promotorasimplemented skills-based training and on-going mentoring to four cohorts of graduate students from various disciplines to implement a childhood obesity intervention.

Results: The benefit of a promotora serving as a leader and mentor both in their community and in academia is two-fold: (1) it transfers specific skills from promotoras to graduate students; and (2) it expands and enhances promotoras’ competencies and skills to strengthen their understating of the research process.  The purpose of this collaboration is to build capacity and integrate cultural values and principles within the academic training and experiential learning of future health professionals.

Discussion:  The strength of the community health worker model is in its flexibility to respond to the unique aspects of the community; however it can be challenging from an academic standpoint where the structure requires rigorous methodology and data driven results.  Integration of a multi-disciplinary team is key. In the presentation, a promotora will discuss the training, mentoring, and skills transferred to the graduate students. The promotora will also discuss the knowledge and skills gained by the promotora team. The promotoras took part in the development of the abstract.