Breakout Sessions
Shaping the Workforce & Narrative
Conflict Management
Conflict is an inevitable aspect of professional and personal life; however, when managed effectively, it can foster growth, innovation, and stronger relationships. This interactive session provides participants with practical tools to identify, understand, and resolve conflict in constructive ways. Attendees will explore their individual conflict management styles and learn how these styles influence approaches to conflict. Through engaging activities, participants will practice the five steps of conflict resolution—Approach, Discuss, Clarify, Explore, and Resolve—and apply these strategies to real-world scenarios. By blending theory with hands-on practice, this session empowers professionals to transform conflict from a source of tension into an opportunity for collaboration and positive change within their organizations and communities.
Brick by Brick: From Lived Experience to Leadership
Drawing from lived experience and 20 years in the field—from hands-on CHW work to leadership in legal, public health, medical, and nonprofit spaces—tif Huber tells the story of the skills that make CHW work trusted, impactful, and sustainable. The session also explores what organizations can do to help CHWs thrive: supportive supervision, clear policies, strong partnerships, and smart use of data to amplify impact and visibility.
Ohio CHW Center of Excellence
Learn about Ohio’s emerging CHW Center of Excellence and how it is supporting training, workforce development, and statewide coordination to strengthen the Community Health Worker profession.
From Blood Pressure to Stroke Prevention: Tools for CHWs
Community health workers (CHWs) play a vital role in supporting individuals and families affected by high blood pressure (hypertension) and preventing serious health events like heart attack and stroke. Hypertension is one of the most common and preventable risk factors for cardiovascular disease and stroke, yet it often goes undiagnosed or uncontrolled. This session will provide CHWs with foundational knowledge about hypertension, including what it is, why it often goes unnoticed, and why managing blood pressure is critical. They will learn how uncontrolled hypertension increases the risk of heart disease and stroke, and how education and support can make a meaningful difference. This session will also introduce self-measured blood pressure (SMBP) as an evidence-based, practical tool that CHWs can promote to clients. Additional tools, resources and referral models related to SMBP will be shared. Lastly, the session will connect hypertension management to stroke prevention and highlight the stroke resources available in the PCHI library. This session will equip CHWs to move from knowledge to action to help their patients and clients with blood pressure management and heart disease and stroke prevention.
The Collaborative Edge: Moving Community Health from Conversation to Action
Community Health Workers are often the bridge between families, clinical teams, and community resources. Yet even in rooms filled with passionate professionals, important ideas can remain stuck in conversation rather than moving toward action. This interactive workshop introduces a simple but powerful collaborative framework designed to help teams move from discussion to implementation. Participants will engage in a structured listening exercise that helps individuals clarify the true core of the challenges they are facing in their work. The session also explores how CHWs can recognize and activate the “champions” already present in their networks; colleagues, community partners, and families who can help move ideas forward. Grounded in real experiences engaging families in clinical waiting spaces and building trust through creative interaction, this workshop invites participants to reflect on their own work environments and identify practical next steps.
Building Power Together
Stopping Preterm Births Before They Start
Infant mortality remains a persistent public health crisis in the United States, with preterm birth as its strongest predictor. This presentation examines the impact of Ohio’s Pathways Community HUB model, a coordinated care and risk-reduction intervention used across twelve regional networks serving high-risk pregnant populations. Using longitudinal statewide data from 2015–2023, this evaluation employs a two-tier analysis: (1) a within-subject comparison of enrolled mothers against their own prior preterm birth history, and (2) a population-level comparison of HUB-enrolled mothers to county-level birth outcomes. This session will share methodology, results, and implications for scaling evidence-based community health navigation strategies to reduce infant mortality and advance maternal-child health equity across diverse contexts.
Budgets Are Tightening: Using Cost-Benefit Analysis
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This session explores how Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA), used alongside carefully selected efficiency metrics, provides a more appropriate and informative framework for decision-making in HUB systems. Using applied HUB data, the presenter will illustrate how key performance indicators (KPIs), service utilization patterns, and outcome measures can be translated into cost-benefit narratives that resonate with funders, policymakers, and boards. The session also includes a practical case example from the Akron Pathway HUB Community Action (PHCA), where a scorecard was developed to support Community Health Worker (CHW) and Care Coordination (CCA) supervisors in coordinating pathways and services to maximize impact and appropriate billing. Together, these approaches demonstrate how HUBs can build analytic capacity, improve service delivery efficiency, and remain accountable and sustainable in an increasingly resource-constrained environment.
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Strengthening CHW-Led Care Coordination in Puerto Rico
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In Puerto Rico, Volunteers of America (VOA) partnered with Dimagi to strengthen a CHW-led care coordination model serving older adults across low-income housing sites. This session shares practical lessons from implementing a mobile case management platform that supports CHWs’ daily workflows, including securely recording demographic information and medical history; completing structured assessments on housing stability, food access, transportation, behavioral health, and social connectedness; tracking client goals, interventions, and follow-up activities; and generating reports for deeper analysis and insight.
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Capacity Building in the Funding Cuts Era
| While the need for social services is significantly increasing nationally, funding sources for nonprofit service providers are being dramatically reduced. This funding rollback not only impacts organizations’ ability to meet the growing demands for direct services and care coordination; it also hinders organizations from building their internal capacity and sustainable infrastructure. To meet this moment for community-based organizations (CBOs) in King County, WA, HealthierHere designed an innovative capacity building framework that provides both funding and programmatic support to address partners’ identified infrastructure needs and empower community leadership. These efforts also build organizational readiness to contract with HealthierHere's Community Hub and other agencies. |
Advocacy in Motion
Lessons Learned from National Implementation of the Pathways Model
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The Pathways Community HUB Institute® (PCHI®) was founded in Ohio in 2015 to further the PCHI Model – a transformative, standardized and proven approach to community driven care coordination. Through national certification, training, and advocacy, PCHI innovates with communities to build capacity to create accountable networks designed to improve health, reduce costs, and advance health for all. Currently, communities in 20 states are implementing the PCHI Model as a Pathways Community HUB (PCH) or Pathways Agency (PA). Community health workers (CHWs) find and engage those at greatest risk for poor outcomes utilizing a quality improvement framework. Central to the PCHI Model are the 21 Standard Pathways that help CHWs identify and track risk factors and work with participants to eliminate the risks one by one. Payment is linked to risk reduction, defined by complete Pathways. PCHs utilize a braided funding strategy, securing grants, philanthropic funding, and healthcare payer contracts to build a community-owned care coordination infrastructure that will last. This session will provide a national perspective on the successes and challenges of implementing the PCHI Model in different communities.
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Measuring the Impact of Community Health Workers
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Community Health Workers (CHWs) play a critical role in improving health outcomes and increasing access to care, yet their full value remains under-documented. Ohio University conducted a statewide Social Return on Investment (SROI) analysis to quantify the social and economic impact of CHWs across Ohio over a one-year period. The analysis estimates that CHWs generated between $94 million and $143 million in total social value, yielding a return of $1.96 to $2.98 for every $1.00 invested. This social value benefits not only CHW clients, but also CHWs themselves, healthcare providers, healthcare payers, taxpayers, and local communities in which CHWs work. Much of this value derives from avoided healthcare costs through reduced utilization and increased preventative care; however, the model also captures broader wellbeing and workforce impacts. In this session we will briefly explain the general method behind our calculations, then focus on the types of impact created by the work of CHWs. We will then welcome a discussion of the findings and how they might inform CHW programming
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Building the PCHI Resource Center Using Insights from an Ohio Environmental Scan
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From September through November 2025, Dr. Sarah Redding – PCHI’s Founder & CEO - visited all twelve Ohio Pathways Community HUBs (PCHs). Dr. Redding will summarize the findings from the environmental scan including use of the PCHI Model, operational concerns, supervision, CHWs, contracting, legislative efforts, and ideas to improve preterm birth rates in Ohio. PCHI’s Education and Training team will describe a pilot program that will address strategies to improve birth outcomes in Ohio.
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Let’s Talk Artificial Intelligence (AI)
| Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already embedded in the everyday work of Community Health Workers (CHWs). This interactive, skill-building workshop is designed to demystify AI and support CHWs in understanding what AI is, what it is not, and how it can be used responsibly to strengthen and not replace human-centered community care. Participants will engage in guided discussions to distinguish AI myths from realities. Through hands-on activities, participants will explore practical, low-cost AI tools that support CHW tasks such as documentation, health literacy, resource navigation, advocacy, grant writing, and community outreach. The session emphasizes critical reflection on benefits and risks, including bias, accuracy, and privacy concerns. Using real-world scenarios, participants will apply a CHW-focused AI ethics checklist to practice ethical decision-making related to confidentiality, transparency, and accountability. By the end of the workshop, participants will leave with increased AI literacy, practical strategies they can immediately apply in their work, and a clearer understanding of how AI can ethically support CHWs’ trusted role in advancing community health and well-being. |
