Community Education Group is excited to announce an opportunity for West Virginia residents to train to be Community Health Workers (CHWs) through its CHAMPS program, which aims to help reduce health disparities among underserved, higher-risk populations in West Virginia. 

The CHAMPS program will train 140 CHAMPS workers in six different areas of West Virginia, each centered around a “hub” county (Berkeley, Hardy, Kanawha, McDowell, Nicholas, and Roane). Trained CHAMPS workers will then deliver health information, education, testing, and vaccines to residents throughout their assigned area. 

CHAMPS seeks to improve the circumstances of its trainees and the organizations they will work for, and to foster communities where people in recovery for substance use disorder are considered and hired for jobs in their communities for public health and other organizations. 
 
CHAMPS strives to: 

  • Ensure CHAMPS CHW trainees receive the skills, knowledge, and wraparound supports they need to increase their employability and to secure and retain employment for at least six months; 
  • Ensure that businesses in the focus counties are supported to build West Virginia’s recovery ecosystem so people in recovery for substance use disorder can find jobs in their communities.

Background

Community Education Group (CEG), a community-based organization actively working in the Washington, D.C. area and Appalachian region, pioneered the CHAMPS program in 2004 to address the health needs of underserved populations. CHAMPS aims to: 

  • Recruit a motivated workforce from within the community. 
  • Train health workers in strategies that are effective in the community. 
  • Deploy community health workers to address public health concerns through outreach, screening, prevention, partnerships, and referral to care. 

Since CHAMPS began, these trained health workers have served their communities in vital public health roles, such as outreach worker, HIV/AIDS testers and counselors, and linkage workers.

For more information on the CHAMPS paid training program, please click here. 

For organizations looking to hire Community Health Workers, please click here.