Community Health Workers in School Systems: Social Prescribing for Healthcare Access and Resource Allocation

Background: During the early years of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, many schools found their staff, specifically teachers, adapting their roles to address social and health challenges, such as food insecurity and health literacy. Given the challenges these school-based communities faced, and continue to face, a clear gap was exposed during these early years of the public health crisis: a lack of community-centered professionals who can assist with social health factors impacting health and well-being. Methods: In this descriptive report, we examine the process and implementation of training two teachers to become community-centered professionals, specifically community health workers (CHWs), to serve schools located in socioeconomically challenged neighborhoods of urban regions. We explore their training and how these CHW-teachers prescribed social health interventions across four major domains: (a) access to medical and environmental equipment, (b) mental health challenges, (c) food insecurity, and (d) health literacy. We describe the specific interventions they implemented and the potential economic value and practicality of the overall initiative. Outputs: In less than one year, two teachers were successfully trained as CHWs in and for underserved communities. These CHW-teachers conducted informal surveys based on objectives of health themes that aligned with absenteeism. Both the process and implementation of the CHW training and CHW-led school-based interventions proved cost-effective and practical. Conclusions: Having CHW-teachers in schools is practical, may offer economic value, and is likely to complement additional health initiatives at schools (e.g., school nurses). As a small-scale pilot initiative, further studies should evaluate CHW-teacher impact on school-based goals, such as attendance rates, while this report focuses on early implementation processes.