CHaSCI's 2023 Year in Review

Written By Emily Levi-D'Ancona

It’s been a busy year for CHaSCI! In 2023, we continued our constant work to expand access to social care through training and policy. As we move into 2024, we’d like to look back on the milestones and successes of our growing team and acknowledge the shared achievements of our network of social care providers and advocates.

We'll summarize our work in four main categories:

 
 

Staff developments

 
 

We hired Alyssa McFadden (Program Coordinator), who previously worked with us as a social work intern at RUSH. Alyssa now works on research and evaluation projects and supports the Campaign for Social Work’s Value in Improving Our Nation’s Health.

 
 

We transitioned Emily Levi-D’Ancona (Program Coordinator) from part-time to full-time staff. Emily works on CHaSCI’s operations, communications, training projects, and the National Coalition on Care Coordination (N3C), and helps to manage our AmeriCorps team.

 
 

We are also proud to announce that Bonnie Ewald (Managing Director) received Health & Medicine’s 2023 Emerging Leader Award, recognizing leaders with fewer than 15 years of experience who are currently involved in community-based work with broadly defined public health implications.

 

Finally, we were pleased to launch our 5th year of hosting AmeriCorps Members for a service year at RUSH. Our current AmeriCorps C4P at RUSH cohort began in September 2023, focusing on projects that extend the reach of RUSH’s programs to impact patient experience with care and health outcomes, lower hospitalization rates, and resolve unmet social needs for participants.

 

Training

In 2023, CHaSCI’s training projects fell into 3 main categories:

 
 

Live Trainings

CHaSCI engaeged in 3 types of live training projects in 2023: (1) CHaSCI care model training, (2) CHW core competency training, and (3) Interdisciplinary training & technical assistance. Across these 3 categories, we trained a total of 242 trainees with over 109 cumulative hours of training across 9 different training projects and partners, including:

  1. CHaSCI Care Model:

    • Wisconsin Hospital Association

    • Illinois Department on Aging / Coordinated Care Alliance

    • Washington State Area Agencies on Aging

    • YMCA of Greater Richmond (CHaSCI care model for social care navigators)

    • CHaSCI Care Model Refresher (open to all past CHaSCI care model trainees)

  2. CHW core competency training:

    • RUSH University Medical Center CHW training

    • University of Illinois at Chicago, Office of Community Engagement and Neighborhood Health Partnerships (OCEAN-HP)

  3. Interdisciplinary training & technical assistance

    • Michigan Area Agencies on Aging

    • Indiana Area Agencies on Aging

    • Chicago House

Curriculum Development

In 2023, CHaSCI developed and adapted content for various initiatives, including:

  • Culminated development of CHW training program at LA Valley Community College in collaboration with Partners in Care Foundation (PICF)

  • Through a CalGrows grant via PICF:

    • Launched CHW training aligned with MediCal requirements on new learning management system, and

    • Began developing a CHW Supervisor training

  • Created three 8-hour modules for a HRSA-funded CHW training managed by UIC’s Office of Community Engagement And Neighborhood Health Partnerships

  • Adapting and recording CHaSCI care model training for asynchronous learning platform (Washington AAA)

Continuing Education

In 2023, CHaSCI’s continuing education projects included:

  • Started Wellness West office hours to provide biweekly social work clinical consultation for CHWs in Chicago’s west side CBOs as part of a state Medicaid transformation project

  • Launched Social Work in Health Care – Training Program (SWIHC-TP) with funding to RUSH from the Cigna Foundation, allowing us to pilot a 25 unit continuing education series with 10 local social workers invested in exploring careers in health care 

  • Hosted bimonthly clinical consultation calls for CHaSCI care model trainees

  • Hosted 5 CHaSCI + Social Work Grand Rounds webinars, including: 

    • Social Workers Break Barriers in Healthcare

    • Advancing the health and well-being of family caregivers of older adults

    • Protecting longevity by addressing vicarious trauma

    • Social Work and Community Health collaboration is essential for health equity

    • Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)

 

Training highlight

In the fall, CHaSCI launched our inaugural Social Work in Healthcare Training Program (SWIHC-TP), intended to (1) train social workers in the essential components of healthcare social work, and (2) enhance representation of diverse social workers in the field of healthcare social work. Learn more here.

 

Policy

In 2023, CHaSCI’s policy work spanned 3 main areas:

 
 

Coalition for Social Work and Health (CSWH):

In 2023, the Coalition for Social Work and Health’s activities included:

 

Policy highlight

The Coalition for Social Work and Health worked closely with the Reps. Danny Davis and Jen Kiggans to support the creation of H.R. 4638, Integrating Social Workers Across Health Care Settings Act. The bill was introduced into the House of Representatives in July. Learn more here.

 

National Coalition on Care Coordination (N3C)

In 2023, the National Coalition on Care Coordination continued to lead monthly calls for idea sharing on different topics related to care coordination, including:

Workforce development policies

In 2023, CHaSCI’s workforce development efforts included:

  • Advanced collaboration with LeadingAge UMass LTSS Center to explore opportunities for supporting direct care professionals to becoming social workers, including a presentation at the LeadingAge conference. 

  • Spoke at the NASW-IL social work summit around opportunities and perspectives for developing the social work workforce, in collaboration with community colleges and BSW programs.

  • Received a grant from CalGrows to start a project on the dementia care specialist workforce, beginning with an environmental scan of existing training programs for dementia care.

Research, Writing, and Presentations

 
 

2023 publications:

CHaSCI published 3 articles in 2023:

  1. Strengthening Community Supports and Health Services: An Imperative for Health Equity and Aging in Community (Golden & Ewald), published July 27, 2023 in Public Policy & Aging Report, calls on policy and public health leaders to help ensure that everyone has the option to age well and in the community.

  2. Organising social care initiatives within an urban academic medical centre (Rosenberg, et al), published Winter 2023 in Management in Healthcare, outlines RUSH’s approach to identifying and addressing social risk factors in a health care setting. 

  3. Rush@Home: Serving the Community Where They are Most Comfortable (Byrne et al), published July 2023 in Clinical Social Work Journal, describes RUSH’s Home-Based Primary Care program and discusses strengths, limitations, and patient satisfaction.

Research & Writing: In Progress

In 2023, CHaSCI had some research and writing projects in progress:

  • Started in 2022 and currently underway: 

    • Our Oak Street Health RE-AIM evaluation is further underway (preliminary data analysis). This research project is evaluating the impact of social workers and CHWs being involved across Oak Street Health clinics. 

    • Scoping review about social work’s impact in care coordination: describes and evaluates the state of the evidence on social work interventions on health and economic outcomes since passage of the Affordable Care Act and identifies and highlights knowledge gaps in these areas.

  • Started in 2023 and currently underway:

    • Rush University seed award to map out psychotherapy clinic processes, including interface with CHaSCI care manager

    • Rush University additional funding stream for student research assistant 

    • Evaluation of Social Work in Healthcare – Training Program, including as a model for workforce diversification 

2023 Presentations

CHaSCI’s 2023 presentations included:

  1. The Michael M. Davis Lecture Series, hosted by the Center for Health Administration Studies at the University of Chicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work (CHAS). Robyn Golden and Bonnie Ewald’s lecture, Paying for Social Care: Investing in What Matters, addressed the need for investment in person-centered social care within the medical system and discussed barriers to investment.

  2. The 12th Annual ACS CAN National Forum on the Future of Health Care, which focused on patient navigation services with cancer patients and survivors, including a panel and luncheon conversation: Patient Navigation in Practice.

  3. Reuters Total Health 2023: we presented at the fireside chat: Drive sustainable change to support patient navigation & equitable care

  4. American Society on Aging Policy webinar: Bonnie Ewald was a panelist for “Advocacy 101,” where she detailed best practices for how clinicians and program leaders can get involved in research, communications, and direct advocacy in order to improve care systems and strengthen communities

  5. The Putting care at the center conference, hosted by the Camden Coalition’s National Center for Complex Health & Social Needs. This year’s theme was “Elevating behavioral health in whole-person care.” CHaSCI team members Bonnie Ewald and Teresa Berumen hosted a Beehive presentation to describe CHaSCI’s work on the Campaign for Social Work’s Value in Improving the Nation’s Health. 

Looking forward

In 2024, we look forward to continuing our work toward expanding access to social care. We’re proud of the progress we’ve made this year, and we’re excited to keep it going!

This year, join us in our mission to break down barriers to health! Learn more about our work:

Emily Levi-D'Ancona
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