Community Health Worker/Home Visitor Certificate Course
Community Health Worker/Home Visitor
Certificate Course
The Santa Fe Community College Community Health Worker/Home Visitor Certification course teaches student the skills needed to apply to be a home visitor in any home visiting program. It also allows them to apply for a CHW Certificate from the New Mexico Department of Health.
In this 16-week (one semester) course students earn 10 higher education credits which can be applied to an AA or BA degree program. Students learn foundational home visitation skills including communication, navigating difficult conversations with families, ethical practice, pregnancy, birth, postpartum support, early childhood development, screening tools, linking families to community resources, managing home visits, record-keeping, and more.
This course is offered twice a year, starting in August and January. To find out about registration and financial aid options, contact us now.
Instructors
Marisol Trevizo
Trainer and Translator
Marisol has lived in Santa Fe, NM for over half her life. She loves Santa Fe because it is a beautiful city full of art and diversity. She has been married to her wonderful husband for many years and she has an amazing son who is now in pre-school.
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She has worked as a home visitor since 2020, when she completed her Community Health Worker/Home Visiting Certification through Santa Fe Community College. A few things that she loves are meeting new people, exploring new places, and living in a state of gratefulness. She has been working as a home visitor for over a year and it has been a great life experience. She has enjoyed working with families from different backgrounds and seeing little ones grow. She hopes she can keep helping and supporting families for many years to come.
Nicole Jones, CHW, CLC (ALPP)
CHW Instructor
Born and raised in Santa Fe NM, Nicole is married and has three adult children. While the kids were school age, Nicole worked as a nurse assistant for Santa Fe Public Schools while working on a degree in Human Services through Santa Fe Community College.
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Working as a nurse assistant sparked interest in the medical field which lead to the pursuit of a degree and certificate in Medical Assisting. Nicole completed an internship in the field of oncology while working under a surgeon specializing in breast cancer and had the opportunity to observe several lifesaving procedures in the operating room. She has 20 years of home visiting experience and more than ten years of experience with the First Born® Home Visiting program. After working as a home visitor for 9 years, Ms. Johnson moved into a leadership role and served as the program manager for the Santa Fe First Born® Program during its startup phase, and first three years of implementation. She has worked as a direct program manager as well as providing supervision and oversight to program managers as VP of Leadership and Innovation. Having worked at all levels of home visiting (as well as receiving home visiting services for her child through early intervention), Ms. Johnson enjoys supporting programs to implement high-quality services for families, focused on joy, learning, and strong relationships.
THIS COURSE:
- Crosswalks the CHW Certification competencies with 28 fundamental home visiting skills. Students who complete the course receive foundational skills to be successful home visitors or community health workers.
- Ties 10 higher education credits with home visitation training. Credits earned in this class nest within the requirements for an AA in Public Health.
- Students complete all coursework in one semester with two, eight-week classes (CHW 131 and CHW 132).
- Utilizes online learning to create a community of learners from across the state of New Mexico, and beyond. There is one class per week, via Zoom. Students complete all other content through an online learning platform, through a weekly discussion board, quizzes, and reflection papers. This format allows students to complete the semester while working full-time.
- Is free to students, as long as scholarship and grant dollars are available.
- Is intended for anyone interested in learning more about home visiting including, but not limited to, home visitors, people considering home visiting or early childhood as a future career, and early interventionists.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
- Apply the role and responsibilities of the home visitor to ethics in practice, client privacy, client rights, and client observation.
- Demonstrate communication skills that are sensitive to individual age, gender, culture, condition, and family role.
- Describe coordination of services for clients and communities.
- Demonstrate interpersonal skills in building positive, effective client relationships that promote learning, growth, and self-efficacy.
- Identify and describe elements of home and home visiting safety and relevant infection control practices.
- Demonstrate accurate home visit documentation and information entry into the home visiting database.
- Apply the home visitor role to educating families on parenting opportunities and challenges in the prenatal, postpartum, infant, and toddler periods.
- Demonstrate effective relationship-building and coaching skills that educate, guide, and empower families.
- Identify and analyze how the parallel process affects participants in a relationship with regard to emotional regulation.
- Demonstrate effective communication and interventions for participants requiring support and redirection in a parallel process.
- Demonstrate time management skills needed in managing visits, documentation, ongoing training, and supervisory and team meetings.
- Analyze the Home Visitor’s role in supporting family stability and capacity building through community knowledge and assessment.
- Describe other opportunities for the home visitor role and demonstrate how to be successful in starting a related career.