The core training course is designed to provide core competencies for Community Health Workers (CHWs) and Community Health Representatives (CHRs). It includes key concepts of public health, outreach, advocacy, community and individual assessment, social determinants of health, health education, navigating insurance, stages of behavior change, service coordination, and more. The core course is offered for Idaho CHWs in 13-week and accelerated 8-week formats and consists of 48 hours of a blend of live online and asynchronous training. The core course is also offered specifically for CHRs through a collaboration with the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB) in an 8-week format and is open to CHRs in Idaho and other states. For more information on the NPAIHB CHR Core Training course please visit our partnership page. 

All CHW and CHR training courses are offered in a hybrid online web-based classroom. The Idaho CHW classes meet in a live online classroom (Zoom) three times during the course term; evenings, from 6 pm-9 pm, on the first, middle, and last weeks of class. These sessions are REQUIRED and must be attended live or arrangements made with instructors. The other weeks students will be working asynchronously (self-paced) and will also be required to choose from 30+ available asynchronous Health Specific Modules and must complete five by the end of class. You can access the online class materials, schedule, and the syllabus from Moodle once they are posted. These materials will generally be posted several weeks before a session starts for each CHW Core class.

The CHW/R Core Training is a prerequisite for the CHW Advanced Training and is also required to complete the Idaho CHW Apprenticeship Program.

Community health workers are a vital component of the state and national public health and healthcare workforce. "Community Health Worker" is an umbrella term for several different job titles, including community health advocates, outreach educators, peer leaders, promotores de salud, doulas, and patient navigators. For many decades, CHWs have made significant contributions to community-based health promotion, disease prevention, and maternal-child health support. They have also improved the rate of health insurance coverage for underserved communities and individuals. CHWs improve access to and increase utilization of primary health care, reduce costs of care, improve quality of care, and reduce health disparities.

ISU offers this training for those interested in becoming CHWs or CHRs. Interested applicants are not required to apply and become students at ISU to take the training.

For more information about this training curriculum, contact the Community Health Worker Training Academy at Idaho State University, at chw@isu.edu, (208) 282-2729, or by visiting the website at: isu.edu/chw/

Idaho State University, in collaboration with the Idaho Statewide Healthcare Innovation Plan (SHIP) project originally developed this training. The training program is funded through 2025 by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $2,994,236.00 with 0% financed with non-governmental sources. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS, or the U.S. Government. For more information, please visit HRSA.gov.