title: Growing your own: community health workers and jobs to careers.
abstract: This article evaluates the implementation and impact of 5 workforce development programs aimed at achieving skills upgrades, educational advancement, and career development for community health workers (CHWs). Quantitative and qualitative case study data from the national evaluation of the Jobs to Careers: Transforming the Front Lines of Health Care initiative demonstrate that investing in CHWs can achieve measurable worker (eg, raises) and programmatic (eg, more skilled workers) outcomes. To achieve these outcomes, targeted changes were made to the structure, culture, and work processes of employing organizations. These findings have implications for other health care employers interested in developing their CHW workforce.
authors.affiliation: Institute on Aging, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514, USA. bfarrar@schsr.unc.edu
authors.forename: Brandy
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Farrar
authors.forename: Jennifer Craft
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Morgan
authors.forename: Emmeline
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Chuang
authors.forename: Thomas R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Konrad
mesh_terms: D000413:Alaska; D002321:Career Choice; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration; D003150:Community Health Workers / Q000193:education* / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008404:Massachusetts; D009518:New York; D016730:Program Development; D036301:Qualitative Research; D000078329:Workforce