2016 COMMUNITY BENEFIT REPORT
The Whole Picture
Community Health Liaisons Embed Support Within Communities
When Lah Say Wah and Denise Burd walked into a home that had a box of eggs in the freezer and a carton of milk on the floor, they were hardly surprised. As Community Health Liaisons at the Women, Infants, and Children( WIC) Clinic in Aurora, Lah Say and Denise see a wide variety of family dynamics and challenges that extend far beyond managing health. Many are recent refugees who don’ t speak English and don’ t know how to take a bus or where to shop for groceries, nevermind how to use U. S. dollars to buy them.
“ Culturally, it makes sense,” says Lah Say, who was a refugee herself.“ Some families don’ t know how to use canned goods or what a refrigerator is, but how could we expect them to when they’ ve never owned one?”
Lah Say came to the United States from Thailand with her parents and brothers in 2009. She spoke no English, yet knew she wanted to be involved with the Aurora community to help other families like hers. Now, she and Denise make up two of eight Community Health Liaisons at Children’ s Hospital Colorado.
As part of the First 1,000 Days initiative, the Child Health Advocacy Institute launched its Community Health Liaison( CHL) program in 2016 with an award from the BUILD Health Challenge. The program aims to address the many social determinants that keep kids from getting the healthcare they need. CHLs meet families in their homes and in their communities, connect them with resources and help them with basic daily needs. Most of these families are immigrants, asylumseekers or refugees, and some are homeless.
In some cases, Lah Say and Denise work with a family for up to three months, helping them navigate public transportation, language barriers, food insecurity,
Medicaid waivers and shopping for baby supplies. But they do much more than that. They are a nonjudgmental face, a counseling friend, a lifeline to surviving in a new country.
“ For me, it’ s a way to pay it forward. When I first moved here, I barely spoke English, and I locked myself out of our home. This woman helped me and later brought cans of food to our apartment. I’ ll never forget it,” reminisces Lah Say.“ For some families we serve, they don’ t have food for the next day. They don’ t know how to pay the bills. And when we come in and help them, it may take 10 visits to figure it out. But when we tell them,‘ We will help you get through this,’ we see hope.”
And when families feel hope, it’ s the start of positively impacting their health outcomes.
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