Meet Marty - A Community Health Worker
/Community Health Worker Awareness Week is held every year from August 26th to 30th. We’re excited to keep highlighting eastern Washington community health workers all year long! Discover more about these incredible individuals who are making a real difference through their dedication, compassion, and relentless commitment to enhancing community health.
My name is Marty and I am a Community Health Worker.
How did you first learn about community health workers?
When I was growing up, I thought that I wanted to be a doctor. Then, I talked to one of my college advisors and explained to them my vision for what health would look like on my reservation compared to the very healthy university town that I was living in. They told me that in order to fix health on the reservation, I would have to get into politics or community health, and I chose community health.
What was your experience like in the community health worker training program?
I enjoyed the community health worker training program because it was self-paced and online, and you could really take your time with the material.
What does a typical day look like for you as a community health worker?
The cool thing about being a community health worker is that no day looks the same, and no client is the same. So you never know what you're going to be doing that day or how your day will look. But typically, you're working with your clients, and whatever that brings is really dependent on the day and the client.
What is the response from community members about your work?
People will stop us mid-sentence, we're just doing our job, and then they tell us, "I just want you to know the work that you're doing is amazing, and we're so grateful, and we appreciate everything that you're doing for us in the community." And it's a nice reminder because, for us, we're just doing our job, and we're on our normal standard operating procedure, if you will. I feel like we get so into doing the work and getting the work done that we forget that we're impacting people's lives in a positive way.