In June 2022, the California Health Care Foundation, in partnership with Health Leads, launched the Community Health Worker & Promotor (CHW/P) Workforce Capacity Building Collaborative (CBC). The CBC supports four regional teams across the state. Each is led by a local organization and consists of various community partners, including safety-net health care providers, Medi-Cal managed care plans, county representatives, community-based organizations, local workforce investment boards, and more.

The teams have committed to work and learn together to develop financially sustainable models to grow the CHW/P workforce in their region as a means to advance health equity. These models and other lessons learned from the project will be shared to inform and accelerate the growth of the CHW/P workforce across the state. The Bright Research Group is assisting with evaluation.

The overarching goals of the CBC:

• Enhance the capacity of health and social service systems to provide linguistically and culturally responsive services
• Scale the CHW/P workforce in California
• Develop financially sustainable, evidence-based models to expand and support the CHW/P workforce
• Connect CHW/Ps to high-quality jobs

The four regional teams:

• Alameda (lead entity: Alameda County Department of Health Care Services)
• Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino (lead entity: El Sol Neighborhood Education Center)
• San Diego (lead entity: San Diego Wellness Collaborative)
• Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Ventura (lead entity: Santa Barbara Foundation)