Supporting Peers and Community Health Workers in Their Roles
Peers and community health workers support service recipients by drawing on personal experiences or community ties. This approach advances the use of shared decision-making, trauma-informed care, recovery-oriented perspectives and individualized models of support. Its value has become increasingly recognized across health care settings.
Health equity and social justice begin with creating a workplace that values diversity and acknowledges its own barriers. Peer workforce integration presents a need and an opportunity to address internal structures and workplace cultures that challenge the path to equity.
The resources below can support organizations in the peer workforce integration process.
Organizational Readiness Toolkit
The needs-based toolkit from the Health Department's NYC Peer and Community Health Worker Workforce Consortium helps organizations support and integrate peers and community health workers. You can complete an online self-assessment to evaluate your organizational readiness. After you finish the assessment, you will see an automatically customized toolkit based on your responses.
Action Planning and Implementation Guide
Workforce Integration of Peer and Community Health Worker Roles: Action Planning and Implementation Guide (PDF) is a new resource that enhances the Consortium’s toolkit. While the toolkit’s organizational self-assessment helps to identify key areas for change, the Action Planning and Implementation Guide offers organizations practical ways to begin implementing change in the areas identified.
Additional Resources
- Workforce Integration of Peer and Community Health Worker Roles: A Needs-Based Toolkit (PDF)
- Role of Community Health Workers