Promotoras, Community Health Workers Rule!

From the community, trusted, lived experience, life literate, bridging, valued & valuable. Russell Bennett shares his experience with Promotores and Promotoras.

Proem

I was the first male public health nurse in Western Massachusetts in 1976. It was also my first professional nursing job. I had a walking route in inner-city Holyoke caring for people with physical disabilities. Many people had bed sores. At most I could see people weekly, but they needed much more help than their families could provide, if they had families. I noticed one of the churches sent parishioners to help out with meals. I quickly realized that I could teach these few local dedicated churchgoers in the neighborhood to help the bed-bound people with dressing changes as long as I provided the materials and checked regularly. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was supporting community health workers. Many years later, when working with peer support in mental health and substance use recovery, I learned about the professionalism of these dedicated people with lived experience. The professionalism came from lived experience plus communication and connection skills, and critical and systems thinking. During my work in acute medical settings (inpatient, emergency, intensive care), I tried to incorporate more lived experience professionals without much success. Some of my…