Senior Community Health Worker and Research Assistant

About our organizations

This project brings together several organizations that (1) provide health care to under-resourced communities and (2) study how to improve this care. You will officially work for the Lundquist Institute. The Lundquist Institute oversees several research projects to improve the health of communities around Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, a health center that serves mostly patients with Medi-Cal insurance that is operated by L.A. County. Your work will also connect you with patients, families, and staff at 27 L.A. County Pediatric primary care clinics through the Rancho Los Amigos Strong Healthy and Resilient Kids (SHARK) Clinic. SHARK helps over 1,000 children and teens each year with mental and behavioral health challenges like Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), depression, PTSD, and disruptive behaviors in youths with special needs. We also work with the Treatment and Research for the Underserved with Stress and Trauma (TRUST) lab in the UCLA Department of Psychology, which helps us (1) find better ways to identify and treat PTSD and (2) organize and study our team's work across LA County.

About your role

You will work both as a (1) senior community health worker/promotor/representative providing health care to patients, and (2) a research assistant who will collect data about the care you provide to study for improvements. You will be a member of a team whose goal is to help families of youths dealing with mental and behavioral health challenges, such as depression, PTSD, and behavior problems in youths with special needs (like autism).

Senior community health worker (~75%)

With supervision from a doctor or social worker, you will do the following:

• Screening: Ask youths and their families about their symptoms
• Goal setting: Work with families to set goals and priorities to address symptoms
• Health education: Educate families on ways to address symptoms
• Connection: Help connect families to community resources
• Monitoring: Regularly update a patient list to track symptoms, goals, health education, and community connections over time

Research assistant (~25%)

• Data entry: Ensure charting in the medical record, research data, and the patient list are accurate
• Consent: Ask families for permission to use the information you collect for research to improve care
• Feedback: Ask families for feedback on how to improve services
• Understanding: Participate in regular reviews of the information you collect to improve care

Desirable qualities

"Head, heart, and hands"

Head

• Attention to detail and organizational skills
• Demonstrates intelligence and competence
• Solves problems creatively

Heart

• Deep love and understanding of community to be served
• Enjoys interacting with others and working in teams
• Maintains a stance of cultural humility
• Enjoys helping others/being of service

Hands

• Takes initiative when problems arise to solve them and/or mobilize team members to solve problems together
• Works hard

Skills/abilities

• Bilingual English Spanish
• MS Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) (desired not required)
• High school graduate (desired not required)

Experiences

• Lived and/or work experience with under-resourced, Spanish-speaking, with Medi-Cal insurance or uninsured (required)
• Lived and/or work experience with youths with mental and behavioral health challenges such as depression, PTSD, special needs such as autism (desired, not required)
• Health care, care navigation (desired, not required)
• Education, health education (desired, not required)
• Working in a team (desired, not required)
• Research projects with under-resourced communities (desired, not required)

Pay

• $25-$30/hr
• 20 hr per week