Community Health Worker

HST Update #5

Series Name: 
HST Update
Published by: 
Health Systems Trust

Has the process of developing human resource's been geared towards making Primary Health Care a priority?" This is a question to which the previous edition of HST Update drew attention. We continue the debate by focusing on a cadre of health workers operating at the community level of health care.

Community Health Workers - A Brief Description of the HST Experience

Published by: 
Health Systems Trust

A Community Health Worker (CHW) may be defined as any health worker delivering health care services and who is trained in the context of the intervention but has no formal professional, certificated or degreed tertiary education. CHW is an umbrella term used for a heterogeneous group of health workers, their scope of practice ranging from implementing biomedical interventions to acting as community agents for social change.

MATERNAL, NEONATAL AND CHILD HEALTH AND NUTRITION PROJECT

Moving Towards Best Practice: Documenting and Learning from Existing Community Health/Care Worker Programmes

Published by: 
Health Systems Trust

Community Health Workers (CHWs) or Community Care Workers (CCWs) are community-selected lay persons providing a community-based health service for which they have been trained although their role has become increasingly important, there is currently concern regarding the effectiveness of programmes that utilise them. The research question is what constitutes best practice in the use of such workers. The term CHW includes all categories of such workers.

Making a difference to school childrens health

Published by: 
Health Systems Trust
This study investigated the School Health Services in KwaZulu-Natal, in order to make recommendations that could make a positive impact on the health of school-aged children. Different aspects of the School Health Services were considered including health inspection and health education undertaken by the School Health Teams, perceptions both of providers and of recipients of the service, as well as the costs of the provision of the service in KwaZulu-Natal.

Traditional Healers

Series Name: 
HST Update
Published by: 
Health Systems Trust
Should traditional healers be recognised as part of the health care delivery system? This controversy rages on and is a long way from being answered. The Valley Trust has considerable experience in the field. In the first 30 years of the organisations existence up to 1980, a stance of non-interference in the affairs of traditional practitioners was taken. In 1980 a number of these practitioners volunteered to be part of the new Community Health Worker (CHW) or Community Based Health Education (CBHE) programme. This was the start of a much closer association between the Valley Trust and Traditional Healers.