Health Educator - Community Health Worker

Classification Title:

Health Educator

Job Description:

The University of Florida (UF) Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology seeks a diligent, detail-oriented individual to function as Health Educator/Community Health Worker (CHW). The CHW will be responsible for providing relevant and timely resources and information directly to community members to improve health behaviors, and access resources that will help lower barriers to better health.

Duties Include:

Community Based Clinical or Social Navigation
-Make community-based referrals to agencies and clinics within the safety net community of Alachua and surrounding counties. Establish and maintain close relationships with safety net organizations and have good working knowledge of key contacts, eligibility criteria, referral process, and follow-up outcomes of these organizations. 
- Follow up with patients after referrals have been made to ensure patients are able to access appointments. 

Community Based Education and Outreach
-Provide longitudinal, clinic, community, or home-based education for pregnant and postpartum patients with chronic diseases (including diabetes, hypertension, COPD/asthma, etc), adverse pregnancy outcomes (gestational diabetes, gestational hypertension) under the oversight of UF OBGYN clinicians.
-Provide  case management, in collaboration with UF OBGYN medical team and perinatal social needs navigator, to assist patients in following up with their care plan and health goals. Case management may be telephone-based or in-person at clinic or via home visits.
- Work with local residents to identify community health education and service needs, providing multi-level interventions to support locally tailored programming.
-Co-develop and disseminate community-facing materials related to pregnancy, postpartum, lactation, doula support, contraception, etc.
-Attend required educational opportunities to enhance knowledge and awareness of evidence-based interventions related to UF OBGYN mission. 
-Coordinate and facilitate external partner and stakeholder meetings or community advisory board meetings which will serve as an opportunity for community to network, mobilize existing resources, identify gaps in resources and reach, highlight new programming
- Participate in ongoing pregnancy and lactation trainings, CHW core competency training programs and professional development opportunities.
- Provide direct service support and educational materials, assist clients with setting up appointments, follow-up, access to care and community resources. Support and educate clients on healthy lifestyle behaviors reinforce appropriate actions to ensure behavior change over time 

Administration
-Participate as a key member of the UFOBGYN team, serving as community advocate and expert. 
-Attend weekly team meetings to coordinate outreach and education efforts, as well as other community engagement meetings as necessary
-Document and report identified community needs, results of outreach efforts, education provided, barriers and facilitators to obtaining addressing needs, and opportunities for community engagement.
-Develop and maintain a working list of external community partnerships and stakeholders
- Develop and maintain an ongoing database of community resources
 The incumbent will be responsible to complete all required CHW training assigned by supervisor as well as fulfill requirements, such as documentation of hours, to obtain CCHW certification as credentialled by the FL Community Health Workers Coalition. This pathway to certification will be outlined and supported by the COE team.

Performs other related duties as assigned.

Expected Salary:

$20.59 - $22.50 hourly, depending on experience and education

Minimum Requirements:

Bachelor’s degree in an appropriate area and two years of relevant experience; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

-Previous experience with perinatal support
-Experience with Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint required
-Experience with Electronic Health Records
-Experience with diverse ethnic, socio-economic and educational populations
-Exceptional interpersonal, verbal and oral presentation skills 
-Highly collaborative and energetic work style
-Must have ability to travel to various locations to meet with stakeholders to maintain relationships and build capacity to expand programs
- Bilingual (Spanish)
- Familiarity of the community resources, social services and healthcare in assigned counties
- Have the ability to properly demonstrate and communicate health education and/or self-monitoring activities
- Willing to act as a community advocate
- Exhibit cultural sensitivity with diverse groups of community stakeholders

Special Instructions to Applican