Seeking Outreach Worker for Courage To Love Community Health Project

Published: January 26, 2015

The Courage To Love Project

Outreach Worker Job Description

Part-time / Chicago IL

Estimated Date: February 2015 – March 2015 (Immediate)

Pay: Hourly up to $15/hour

Download job description here

The Courage to Love, project works on the premise that one of the ways that health professionals measure the health of a community is by the health of babies-whether they are born to early (pre-term) and whether they die before their first birthday (infant mortality. In the Auburn Gresham community, data notes that the pre-term birth rate is much higher compared to the Chicago average and the infant mortality is one of the highest rates in Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods.

It is also noted that regardless of where they are born or their parent’s income or education, more African American babies are born early or die before their first birthday than any other babies. This is unacceptable and preventable.

The Courage to Love, project asserts disparities in infant mortality have more to do with physical consequences of stress that occur when social relationships are not healthy and less to do with healthcare access. People in the communities call it love! Using an asset-based approach, we aim to identify the relational strengths in Auburn Gresham community and work with residents on ways to expand and institutionalize those assets, with infant mortality and pre-term birth outcomes as primary indicators of community health. What we know if that when we have positive social relationships with other people, our stress levels go down and our bodies do better. It takes courage to claim the power of love in a world that seems dominated by violence and harshness. Our project makes that claim and invites others to embrace its promise also—not just as a possibility for the future, but for how love and beauty are already alive and thriving in Auburn Gresham.

The Courage to Love Project is seeking experienced, highly organized and motivated individuals to support our program outreach activity in the Auburn Gresham and surrounding community. This is a part-time position to start immediately for approximately 6 weeks, 20 hours per week. (February 2015 through approximately beginning April 2015)

Position Description / Responsibilities

The Courage to Love Outreach Worker is responsible for overall engagement of the community for the project,
A key role is to identify people and organizations in the Auburn Gresham community we can connect to and have a conversation about infant mortality in Auburn Gresham.
Outreach worker will schedule and complete “Deep Listening Interviews,” using a set of pre-defined questions created by the team.
“Deep Listening Interviews” will consist of one-on-one interviews and/or group interviews, including identifying and attending community meetings, block club meetings and hosting meetings to gather the input of the community around infant mortality. (Potential target audience 18-45 years old)
Outreach worker will schedule Courage to Love Outreach Awareness events, with the assistance of the team (approximately 2)
Promote the Courage to Love project by passing our handouts and other key information to describe the purpose of the project during the interviews and community awareness events.
The outreach worker will be very motivated, self-starter and energetic worker
The outreach worker will be very familiar with residents, churches, block clubs, organizations in Auburn Gresham in order to immediately begin scheduling interviews and awareness sessions (strong relationship/power network in Auburn Gresham)
The outreach worker will perform duties up to 20 hours per week
Outreach worker will attend team and report findings at Courage To Love team meetings
Project Training and oversight will be provided by the Courage To Love team
Responsibilities are a best effort description that may change in scope and duration, with agreement of the project team.
This is a part time position, funded via a grant and does not include benefits

Interested parties contact Norma Sanders at the Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation, 7901 S. Racine, Chicago, IL, 60620 phone: 773.483.3696

Keywords: Babies, health, Infant mortality, Love