On July 26, 2024, Community Health Worker Fonda McClain was interviewed by OHC Marketing Consultant and Boone Logic Founder Faith Boone during a LIVE Fireside Chat, producing a powerful discussion on health equity.
At the end of the interview, Faith opened the discussion to allow questions from the virtual audience. Below is a transcription of the Q&A portion of the event.
Faith:
Well, Fonda, thank you so much for joining us today. Everyone, who is listening, we are going to have a Q&A with Fonda, but before we get to the Q&A, I just wanted to ask her a couple more questions.
Fonda, it was really great to hear you share your story today and talk to us about the community health worker model, and how it's helping to eradicate health disparities, not just in Cleveland, but everywhere.
For the viewers who are interested in supporting initiatives like Achieve GreatER, or the Better Health Partnership, can you give any steps on what they can do to get involved?
Fonda:
The first, the only step I can give is to give us a call. The phone number is 216-844-0740 and you will actually call the Achieve GreatER line. There you will be able to go through the screening process. I can give you the qualifiers are from 40 to 75, you do have to have 1 of 4, which is hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, or obesity, in order to qualify. But, just give us a call.
Give us a call. One way or another, we can help.
Faith:
What's a message that you would like to share with the audience about the importance of community health workers, in reducing health care disparities?
Fonda:
That it is a real job. We are intentional in doing our job, and we are committed to helping add value to not only healthcare but making sure we add health as well in our communities.
We want a healthy community. We don't want just neighbors or organizations in our communities. We want to have a community again where we can all come out and get to know one another.
Faith:
Thank you. so much, Fonda. I super appreciate all of that.
We did have a couple questions come in through the chat, so I'm going to share those with you. The first one came from Silas Buchanan, who says, “Thank you for such a compelling session, Fonda. Who do you believe is best positioned to pay for the services that CHW provides? Is it payers, providers, providers? Or social service agencies?”
Fonda:
I would say payers and actual social service agencies. If they allow community health workers to become a profession, we already can get our AVI numbers, but if they allow us to add on, instead of having different entities, be the middle person, and allow us to contractually do the work. I feel as though they would have even more impact as a Community Health Worker.
Faith:
Wonderful. Our next question comes from Sam Flavell. And Sam writes, “As a community health worker, do you experience pushback or mistrust from patients, the community, or other professionals? And how do you respond to that?”
She has a follow-up question as well, but I'll wait until you answer this first one.
Fonda:
The answer to your question, good question, both on Silas and Sam. Yes, we do experience pushback and it does happen because of a lack of trust. As far as providers and other professionals, they do not look at community health workers as an ally or informal partner, or informal coworker, as of yet. Because again, a lot of people do not understand the use and how to use a community health worker advantageously.
Faith:
And also, this is Sam's follow-up question. “How do you or how can others help raise awareness about the community health worker model and the positive impact that it is making?”
Fonda:
Great, great question, Sam. So, bringing awareness about community health care workers, we have different associations, for community health workers.
We are actually, educated through Cleveland State, which has different initiatives. We have peer support counselors, HIV support counselors there. We also have Tri-C, they have a whole new initiative this year for community health workers, and not only because it just started off with those 2, right?
Now, we have John Carroll (University) and Kent State have community health workers tagged on as certifications as well, where they're actually doing air quality control research, which I think is an excellent thing for community workers.
So we're getting small momentum, but just pushing us out there. We see that we're asking for support nationally or locally would be a great help.
Faith:
Thank you, to everyone who submitted questions.
Before we wrap up on that, I just have one question of my own. “What is the future for the community health worker model?”
Where do you see, I hear you saying that you guys aren't seen as a true profession yet. Is that coming down the line? Do you feel that this will grow and that this will continue to help our communities prosper?
Fonda:
There's a, whew, you all have these stellar questions. So, yes, we're pushing it to grow. It is getting kind of worried for some, especially the ones in the hospital that hit the glass ceiling. But there is a strong team behind us. We even have Angela Dawson (Executive Director at Ohio Commission on Minority Health) for minority health. She's a good supporter of community health workers.
Every year, they put out With Impact Ohio. They're the support of community health workers that hear our voice and take it to the administration so they know that. Yes, we're under the board of nursing, but again, help support us so we can support our communities and make it more viable. So, yes, I do see that growth.
I do see us pushing for that as we push, bringing that support and making it a little bit louder for them to know that we are here. We're here to stay and we're here to make a difference.
Faith:
That is so wonderful. Thank you so much again, Fonda. Thank you for answering all the questions and for sharing your story.
Thank you to everyone who showed up today in the audience and for sharing your questions for Fonda as well.
We hope to have more of these live fireside chats and we hope that you got to learn a thing or two.
Thank you so much, everyone and I hope everyone has a great day.
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