2023 California Code › Welfare and Institutions Code - WIC › DIVISION 9 - PUBLIC SOCIAL SERVICES › PART 6 - MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS › CHAPTER 16.5 - Community Health Workers › Section 18998.

18998. For purposes of this chapter, the following terms have the following meanings:
(a) “Community-defined” means a set of practices that communities have used and found to yield positive results, as determined by community consensus over time. These practices may or may not have been measured empirically, but have reached a level of acceptance by the community.
(b) “Community health worker” means a liaison, link, or intermediary between health and social services and the community to facilitate access to services and to improve the access and cultural competence of service delivery. A community health worker is a frontline health worker either trusted by, or who has a close understanding of, the community served. Community health workers include Promotores, Promotores de Salud, Community Health Representatives, navigators, and other nonlicensed health workers with the qualifications developed pursuant to this chapter, including violence prevention professionals. A community health worker’s lived experience shall align with and provide a connection to the community being served.
(c) “Core competencies” means the foundational and essential knowledge, skills, and abilities required for community health workers, which include all of the following:
(1) Communication skills.
(2) Interpersonal and relationship-building skills.
(3) Service coordination and navigation skills.
(4) Capacity building skills.
(5) Advocacy skills.
(6) Education and facilitation skills.
(7) Individual and community assessment skills.
(8) Outreach skills.
(9) Professional skills and conduct.
(10) Evaluation and research skills.
(11) Knowledge base, including knowledge of basic public health principles, and social determinants of health and related disparities, of the community to be served.
(d) “Cultural competence” means a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system or agency that enables that system or agency to work effectively in cross-cultural situations. A culturally competent system of care acknowledges and incorporates, at all levels, the importance of language and culture, intersecting identities, assessment of cross-cultural relations, knowledge and acceptance of dynamics of cultural differences, expansion of cultural knowledge, and adaptation of services to meet culturally unique needs to provide services in a culturally competent manner.
(e) “Department” means the Department of Health Care Access and Information.
(f) “Lived experience” means personal knowledge of a specific health condition or circumstance, which may include, but not be limited to, Alzheimer’s and other related dementia, climate impact on health, disability, foster system placement, homelessness, justice involved, LGBTQ+ status, mental health conditions, substance use, military service, pregnancy, and birth. A community health worker may draw on their lived experience to assist other individuals with navigation to treatment and services. A community health worker with lived experience involving a behavioral health or other health condition may need additional training on how to appropriately use this lived experience to assist other individuals with their recovery from that condition.
(g) “Specialty certificate” means the next level of training that concentrates on specific program focus areas, with learning objectives and topics tailored to the skills required for distinct program and population needs.
(Added by Stats. 2022, Ch. 47, Sec. 144. (SB 184) Effective June 30, 2022.)