Reaching the Community
Children’s Health Initiative (CHI) partners continue to work extremely hard to reach the uninsured children in Santa Clara County with family income at or below 300% of the Federal Poverty Level. The success of CHI is primarily due to the dedication and work of the Certified Application Assistors (CAAs) and Eligibility Workers who are responsible for reaching community members and providing application assistance.
Bilingual Certified Application Assistors (CAAs) are deployed at strategic sites throughout the county (such as at health centers, and community-based organizations) that have established trusting relationships with low-income, uninsured, and immigrant populations. Significantly, County’s Social Services Agency has expanded the Eligibility Workers’ roles and redesigned the intake process to include application assistance for Medi-Cal, Healthy Families, and Healthy Kids. This innovative systemic change provides a significant increase in CHI staff resources and application assistance sites. Education, marketing and outreach methods continue to change and evolve based on valuable lessons learned during the implementation of CHI. Below are some of the strategies employed to reach the community members since the inception of CHI on January 2001.
- Site Staff Education
- CHI Outreach Methods
- Lessons Learned
- Current CHI Certified Application Assistor Sites
