Health Educator & Navigator

La Clinica del Pueblo; Hyattsville (MD); On-site; USD 48,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

La Clínica del Pueblo in Hyattsville, MD seeks a Health Educator and Navigator to provide sexual, HIV, and STI education and navigation to prevention services for clients. A key component is navigation to essential social support services, with responsibilities across outreach, education, and coordination.

The role requires bilingual English/Spanish communication, community health experience, and the ability to move between sites as needed, with on-site work in multiple locations.

Qualifications

• Associate degree in health field, or related discipline, or an equivalent two-year combination.
• Bilingual, Spanish-English / bi-cultural.
• One year of experience working in community health settings.
• Two years’ experience working in service delivery with the Latino immigrant community and/or multi-ethnic community.
• Two years of experience in maintaining and enhancing networking efforts with community stakeholders for navigation services.
• Comprehensive knowledge of social determinants of health, learning, and behavior change theories.

Responsibilities

• Provide individual and group health education to patients and participants on sexual health topics.
• Implement evidence-based health psychoeducation interventions tailored to the needs of patients and participants that are living with HIV or at high risk.
• Support manager in the coordination of events to recruit and engage high-risk clients for HIV and provide interventions for risk-reduction and behavioral change.
• Coordinate with other staff members and/or peer health promoters to planned events, as needed.
• Navigate clients to appropriate health and social resources to meet needs and goals.
• Develop individual plans to navigate clients to the identified services needed.
• Support bilingual health promotion activities and implementation of community events.

Job description

Job Description

La Clínica del Pueblo, Inc.

Job Title: Health Educator and Navigator Department: Community Health Action Department

Supervisor: Health Educator & Navigator Team Lead

Location: This position will be primarily located at our Hyattsville site; but it needs to be able to move between locations as needed. This position will work on-site.

Classification: This is a non-Exempt/Hourly position

Synopsis: This position will work within the Community Health Action Department to provide sexual, HIV, and STI health education and navigation to prevention services to La Clinica’s clients to reduce the incidence of HIV/STIs and to promote health. A main component of this position is to provide navigation support to essential social support services.

Required Education And Experience

• Associate degree in health field, or related discipline, or an equivalent two-year combination
• Bilingual, Spanish-English / bi-cultural.
• One year of experience working in community health settings.
• Two years’ experience working in service delivery with the Latino immigrant community and/or multi-ethnic community.
• Two years of experience in maintaining and enhancing networking efforts with community stakeholders for navigation services.
• Comprehensive knowledge of social determinants of health, learning, and behavior change theories.

of education and experience from which comparable knowledge and skills may be obtained.

Preferred Education And Experience

• Two years’ experience implementing educational and psychoeducational interventions for people living with HIV.
• Knowledge, skills, and experience in implementing Hight Impact Prevention and Behavioral Change interventions.
• Experience supporting implementation of participatory research methodologies including dissemination efforts.

Required Skills/Abilities/Certifications/Licenses

• High motivation for work in the public health field.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in both English and Spanish.
• High motivation to advocate for sexual and racial minorities, youth, people living with HIV, and LGBTQ communities’ rights.
• Strong ethical core.
• Computer literate in Microsoft Office (Word, Power Point, Outlook, Excel).
• Ability to work with electronic medical records (EMR) or another database software.
• Interpersonal, and problem-solving skills, detail-oriented, self-starter, and highly organized.

Preferred Skills/Abilities/Certifications/Licenses

• DC, MD, or VA Community Health Worker Certification.

Duties And Responsibilities

• Provide individual and group health education to patients and participants on sexual health topics.
• Implement evidence-based health psychoeducation interventions tailored to the needs of patients and participants that are living with HIV or at high risk.
• Support manager in the coordination of events to recruit and engage high-risk clients for HIV and provide interventions for risk-reduction and behavioral change, including but not limited to HIV &STI testing services in alternative community-based venues.
• Coordinate with other staff members and/or peer health promoters to planned events, as needed.
• Navigate clients to appropriate health and social resources to meet needs and goals, through:
• Conduct on-going assessment, monitoring, triage, and reassessment of client progress and needs.
• Develop individual plans to navigate clients to the identified services needed.
• Coordinate with other staff members and/or peer health promoters to conduct the navigation planned as needed.
• Support the Team Lead in maintaining the implementation of the PrEP workflow.
• Support the Team Lead in maintaining a referral system to connect community members to existing community services.
• Support data quality assurance and improvement initiatives to promote accurate, complete, and reliable program data.
• Support data collection, validation, analysis, and reporting to meet programmatic and organizational requirements as needed.
• Support delivery of bilingual HIV & STI counseling, testing & referral services at La Clinica' sites and alternative venues, as needed, including but not limited to:
• Support pre & post-test counseling to conduct further risk reduction and supportive counseling and referrals for early medical intervention.
• Support referrals and accompaniment to clients following La Clinica’s guidelines and procedures, including the newly diagnosed HIV positives.
• Implement all CTR protocols and guidelines, including verification that sites have private space, materials in both English and Spanish, Rapid Test technology capabilities, condoms, hazard trash disposal, and other logistics.
• Participate in periodic team meetings with other HIV testers to evaluate cases and protocols.
• Update referral information for services, such as STI clinics, health centers, and others in coordination with other departments/units at La Clinica.
• Implement program’s interventions (such as Personalized Cognitive Counseling, ECHO, Promise, among others) targeting individuals at high-risk for HIV and substance use.
• Conduct periodic recruitment strategies for re-testing for HIV, such as phone calling, texting, and social media messaging.
• Data collection and reporting related to CTR services.
• Support bilingual health promotion activities and implementation of community events.
• Maintain medical records and other databases including completeness, filing, neatness, confidentiality, and documentation.
• Attend Program and Department health education case discussion meetings.
• Attend required training to increase/maintain skills.
• Attend program, department, and all staff meetings and all mandatory La Clinica activities.
• Meet with supervisor as required to coordinate implementation of programs and services.
• Represent La Clinica by attending conferences, meetings, coalitions, and community planning groups meetings, as designated by supervisor.
• Follow La Clinica’s Code of Conduct, and all other personnel Policies and Procedures.
• Perform other related duties as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities

• None.

Physical Requirements

• Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Ability to work on some weekends and evenings, as needed.
• Able to perform duties in different La Clinica’s locations as required.