Community Health Worker

Department: College of Public Health

Classification: Research Staff 12-month

Job Category: Research Staff

Job Type: Full-Time

Work Schedule: Full-time (1.0 FTE, 40 hrs/wk)

Location: Prince William County, VA 

Workplace Type: On Site Required

Salary: Salary commensurate with education and experience

Restricted: Yes

Criminal Background Check: Yes

About the Department:

For over 40 years, the School of Nursing has prepared students for interdisciplinary roles as clinicians, educators, researchers, and administrators. Students learn to address the challenges of a rapidly changing and diverse healthcare environment with hands-on experience in simulation, skill-building labs, and clinical settings. Within the school’s Mason and Partners Clinics (https://publichealth.gmu.edu/mapclinics), they gain experience working with culturally diverse patient populations in the Northern Virginia area which provides them with the necessary skills to deliver health care where it is needed the most. Nursing faculty, staff, and students engage in work, study, and research that have major impacts on health equity, vulnerable populations, preventative care, population health, and the local workforce. Serving as experts in workforce development, School of Nursing faculty are committed to challenging the national nursing shortage and producing talented, equity-minded practitioners and scholars.

The School of Nursing’s position within the College of Public Health, epitomizes the innovative, collaborative nature of the university’s culture. The School of Nursing plays a leadership role across the university in digital innovation for education, professional practice, and the delivery of health services. Students learn to address the challenges of a fast-paced, rapidly changing, and diverse healthcare environment with hands-on experience in state-of-the-art Virtual Reality/Simulation labs and 9 different community-based Mason and Partners (MAP) clinics. The School of Nursing prepares students to address multicultural and socioeconomic diversity to ensure all populations receive effective interventions.

The MAP Clinics are an integral part of the School of Nursing’s work in community health and prevention. These nurse-managed clinics unite community and academic resources to provide an access point for underserved, high-risk populations to enter a complex healthcare system. The School of Nursing’s work in the MAP clinics allows faculty and students to address the priority health care needs of fellow community members in Fairfax and Prince William counties using interprofessional treatment team approaches focused on personalized care and empowered access to health information and care.

About the Position:

The Community Health Worker plays a vital role in increasing eligible Afghan refugees’ access to and engagement with effective, holistic, strengths-based, trauma informed, and culturally and linguistically appropriate services as part of the HEAR-VA. This role supports the development, implementation, and evaluation of HEAR-VA, a service delivery infrastructure not just for, but in partnership with, Afghan survivors of combat and other refugees and immigrants who are impacted by trauma and violence. This role is responsible for recruiting patients into the program, screening for eligibility, facilitating clinic visits, data entry, and reporting.

In addition, this role supports the building of a trauma-informed, “no wrong door” community model of care coordination and cross-sector collaboration. This position will conduct outreach to community partner sites, including refugee resettlement agencies, and build sustainable referral mechanisms for quick access to comprehensive medical and behavioral health care for refugees in Northern Virginia.

Responsibilities:

Linguistically and Culturally Appropriate Health Care Access:

• Provides culturally and linguistically appropriate health education to patients in the core MAP Clinic sites and extension sites on various health topics across the lifespan, including acute and chronic disease management, lifestyle and behavioral change, health promotion and disease prevention, immunization, social determinants of health, and behavioral health.
• Works closely with an interdisciplinary team of health providers to tailor clinical messaging.
• Responsible for both in-person patient support and the creation and dissemination of informational materials.