CHW Perceptions of Social Work
Focus groups led By CHaSCI at Rush University Medical Center, in collaboration With the National Association of Social Workers - Illinois (NASW-IL)
Within the field of social work, there is growing acknowledgement of the need to promote diversity in the workforce to better reflect the racial, ethnic, and other identities of the communities we serve. In the past several years social work and healthcare settings have begun to fill this gap by leveraging Community Health Workers (CHWs), non-clinical healthcare staff who engage in direct work with communities and often represent the communities that they serve. Due to their connection to the communities served and their strong commitment to social care, CHWs have been identified as a promising group to help strengthen and diversify the social work workforce.
In order to determine the best pathways for CHWs to pursue social work careers, NASW - Illinois Chapter and CHaSCI conducted focus groups with CHWs in the Chicago area. The goal of these focus groups was to understand how CHWs feel about their own work, gauge how they perceive and interact with social workers, and identify which barriers or challenges they face to pursing social work as a career. After conducting six focus groups, our team identified the following themes:
Participants are satisfied in their current roles as CHWs.
Participants report mixed experiences with social workers.
CHWs have diverse careers goals, and many want to stay involved with community health work.
CHWs reported several reasons for not pursuing a SW degree, including time and cost of schooling.
CHWs indicated that structured supports could help ease their pathway to becoming a social worker.
Our team identified that barriers to the social work career pathway include the time and financial investment required to get a social work degree, perceived lack of adequate financial compensation for SWs, and negative perceptions of the systems that social workers operate within. It will be important to consider these findings as the social work field works to create pathways that guide and support CHWs to pursue a career in social work.