Community Health Worker Training and local capacity building to promote health and prevent disease.

COVID education and outreach through building local community health worker (CHW) workforce:

In July, 2021, SEAHEC was awarded a $1,000,000 grant from the US Department of health 7 Human Services, Health Resources Services Administration. SEAHEC will partner with five organizations including: The Arizona Community Health Worker Association – AzCHOW, a state-wide CHW association; two federally qualified health centers – Canyonlands Healthcare and Mariposa Community Health Center; Catholic Community Services/Casa Alitas – a social services agency and Pinal Hispanic Agency, a behavioral health agency. SEAHEC, and three of its five partners will hire, train, supervise and evaluate a total of 12 CHWs who will be deployed to promote covid-19 vaccination among the most vulnerable groups in the six-county region.

These include: Gila, Graham, Greenlee, Pima, Pinal, and Santa Cruz counties in Southeastern and Central Arizona.; counties were selected due to their high social vulnerability per the CDC Social Vulnerability Index (SVI). Strategies of Proyecto Juntos will include:

Outreach to identify unvaccinated individuals;

Share information about how and where to get vaccinated;

Education to decrease vaccine hesitancy; and

Help plan, promote and staff vaccine events.

Vacunas Para Todos:

A Pilot Project for Migrant Care Coordination & COVID prevention

In June, 2021, SEAHEC and its partner Casa Alitas Shelter, in Tucson, received a CDC Foundation grant to support COVID education for migrant communities. Through this grant, SEAHEC is training Community Health Workers at Alitas to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate education and support to migrants and their sponsor families, addressing vaccine hesitancy and connecting migrants to a health center or health department in their destination community where a “health care home” can be established. SEAHEC is working with a network of other AHEC centers around the U.S. in top destination communities for migrants, in order to provide health care continuity, among other services. These include: Brooklyn/Queens/Long Island AHEC; Mid Rio Grande Border AHEC; Capitol AHEC and Miami/Dade AHEC. It is our hope that legal and behavioral health service providers and agencies will join us in this effort to support migrant families throughout their journey.