On October 2020, the Mayors Office of Education invited us to partner with them in order to train over 40 community health workers as Community Health Education Fellows (CHEFS). These CHW/CHEFS would be tasked with delivering projects within their communities that provided COVID-19 education and resource matching.

 

The implementation of the CHEF program was divided into underresourced hubs within the Houston community:

• Sunnyside
• East End
• SW Houston (New Hope Housing & Fundacion Latino Americana de Accion Social)
• Third Ward (Cuney Homes)

 

It was no easy task to coordinate over 40 individuals into different hubs and teams to produce outcomes in the middle of a pandemic but the UHCHWI and Mayors Office of Education pulled through and we were able to enroll almost 100 individuals into our Trust and Learn and produce 13 projects all of which target several social determinants of health and are intended to build capacity within their respective community. All CHEFS met virtually with their teams and provided care coordination over phone or socially distanced. Many of the CHEFS did not have computer access so the Mayors Office of Education provided us with 50 laptops to provide to each of the CHEFS that were in need of a laptop.

On December 11th, we celebrated the accomplishments of our CHEFS in conjunction with the graduation of 68 CHW's from our Fall 2020 CHW class. City of Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner provided the CHW and CHEFS with a beautiful commencement address delineating the need for community health workers providing advocacy to underresourced communities within the City of Houston.

Thank you to the City of Houston Mayors Office of Education, CHEFS, and CHW's for all of your hard work!