LaGuardia Receives $200k Grant From Mother Cabrini Health Foundation to Support The Community Health Worker Pipeline Development Program
LONG ISLAND CITY, NY (January 24, 2025) — LaGuardia Community College/CUNY was recently awarded a $200K grant from The Mother Cabrini Health Foundation (MCHF) to support the Community Health Worker Pipeline Development Program (CHWDP). This is the fourth grant awarded by The Mother Cabrini Health Foundation in support of the CHWDP.
“We appreciate the generous support and on-going partnership with the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation,” said Hannah Weinstock, Senior Director of Workforce Development at LaGuardia. “LaGuardia continues to reinforce its commitment to helping diverse populations obtain skills to help them earn employment and move up the socioeconomic ladder. This grant helps make a difference in the lives of many health workers across New York City.”
The CHWDP, offered through the Continuing Education Division, advances economic and social mobility by training unemployed and underemployed immigrants with limited English proficiency for work as community health workers. The program helps participants improve their English language skills, train as a Community Health Worker (CHW), complete a CHW-related internship, and connect to employment opportunities in the field. The CHWDP also provides healthcare organizations with a talented, culturally competent, and well-trained CHW workforce that speaks the many different languages of their patients. This allows these organizations to enhance engagement with New York City’s immigrant communities.
With support from the MCHF, LaGuardia’s program includes both a contextualized English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) bridge as well as an integrated Community Health Worker (CHW) training, and internships at a variety of agencies conducting health outreach and promotion with local faith initiatives, mobile units and other outreach teams in marginalized and hard-to-reach communities, including those in high poverty neighborhoods. Upon completion of training and internships, students will be connected to employment opportunities at public health and community organizations across NYC.
“After the completion of the training and internship, many participants go on to work at their internship sites, while others are connected to any of the 48+ CHW employers in LaGuardia’s network of partners,” Weinstock said. “For participants looking to continue their education, graduates of the program can begin an Associate degree in Human Services or Public Health at LaGuardia with nine credits under their belt, accelerating their progress towards achieving a degree.”
Over the last two years, LaGuardia has enrolled 42 English language learners, with 95% completing training and another 95% completing 125-hour CHW-related internships at sites like Institute for Community Living, Center for the Integration of New Americans, Dominican Women’s Center, Bronx Works, Queens Community House, The Guild for Exceptional Children, Commonpoint Queens, Lincoln Hospital, Jamaica Hospital Center, Centro Comunitario, and Complete Home Care.
Sixteen graduates, a majority of graduates from the first cohort, have secured training-related employment in titles such as Community Health Worker, Case Manager, Family Support Specialist, Behavioral Health Specialist, and Outreach Coordinator at sites such as CIANA, AIRNYC, NYC Health and Hospitals, YAI, Clinical Directors Network, BronxWorks, Queens Community House, Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership, CAMBA, and Charles B. Wang Community Health Center.
Funding from MCHF enables LaGuardia to offer this program at no cost to the student population, which is low-income, unemployed or under-employed, and unable to afford the cost of the program without grant support.
“The population that we serve includes unemployed and underemployed immigrant New Yorkers with limited English proficiency,” Weinstock said. “They live mostly in Queens, but also in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, and come from throughout Latin America, Asia, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. While Spanish is the native language of many of our students, other common languages include Chinese, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, French, a variety of African languages, Arabic, Bengali, Urdu, Farsi, Russian, and more. This program makes a difference in the lives of many people from all over the world.”
• • • •
The Mother Cabrini Health Foundation is a private, nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the health and wellbeing of New Yorkers, bolster the health outcomes of vulnerable communities, eliminate barriers to care, and bridge gaps in health services. Named after a tireless advocate for immigrants, children, and the poor, the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation funds programs and initiatives across New York State that either provide direct healthcare services or address the social determinants of health. For more information, visit https://www.cabrinihealth.org
LaGuardia Community College (LAGCC), a Hispanic-Serving Institution, located in Long Island City, Queens offers more than 50 associate degrees and academic certificates, and more than 65 continuing education programs to prepare New Yorkers for transfer to senior colleges and rewarding jobs and careers. An institution of the City University of New York (CUNY), the College reflects the legacy of our namesake, Fiorello H. LaGuardia, the former NYC mayor beloved for his advocacy of the underserved. Since 1971, LaGuardia’s academic programs and support services have advanced the socioeconomic mobility of students from Queens, NYC and beyond.
####