Sharing Expertise: Strengthening Community Navigation Together

Improving access to health and social services often requires far more than any single organization can provide. It requires collaboration, shared learning, and a commitment to strengthening systems together.

The Community Health Navigator Network is a partnership that brings together grassroots organizations and the Kent County Health Department to expand culturally and linguistically responsive community health navigation. The network aims to ensure that people across Kent County, especially those from historically underserved communities, can connect to the resources they need to support their health and well-being.

Participating organizations are:

• A Glimpse of Africa
• Grand Rapids Pride Center
• Hispanic Center of Western Michigan
• Treetops Collective
• West Michigan Asian American Association

In 2023, Health Net of West Michigan joined the network to help strengthen the development of a community of practice focused on resource navigation. Together, partners work to identify barriers in accessing care, build shared expertise, and develop best practices for navigation that reflect the needs and experiences of the communities they serve.

Building Skills and Shared Expertise

A key focus of the network has been strengthening the skills and knowledge of community health navigators and their supervisors. Over the past two years, partners have participated in several training opportunities designed to support frontline staff and strengthen collaboration across organizations.

These learning opportunities include:

• Onboarding for social determinants of health (SDoH) screening and referral, allowing partners to coordinate warm handoffs when clients need additional support accessing resources.
• Care Model © training and the Supervisor Learning Cohort through Health Net, helping teams build consistent approaches to navigation and leadership.
• Safe Sleep education facilitated by the Kent County Health Department.
• Community Health Worker certification training through the Michigan Community Health Workers Alliance (MiCHWA).

Together, these learning experiences strengthen navigators’ skills across organizations while building a shared framework for how navigation can best support community members.

From Collaboration to System-Level Impact

As the network has evolved, collaboration has led to meaningful progress in building stronger systems of support across the community.

Partners have developed shared agreements that guide trust, communication, and transparency across organizations. The network also established a purpose statement and a clear definition of its role as a community of practice, helping ensure that partners work toward shared goals.

Training investments have expanded workforce capacity across the network. As of October 2024, nine community health navigators from partner organizations completed MiCHWA-approved Community Health Worker training, while 27 navigators completed Health Net’s Care Model © training, and six supervisors strengthened their leadership skills through the Supervisor Learning Cohort.

to screening and navigation for SDoH, with flexibility to adapt to the needs of specific populations, particularly refugee, immigrant, and migrant communities. Partner organizations conduct outreach and help clients complete SDoH screenings, which are then shared with Health Net resource navigators who provide personalized support in finding resources. As an example of an adapted process, one partner agency allows its clients to use the organization’s phone number, so they can still receive navigation services even without consistent access to personal phones.

Expanding Opportunities Through Partnership

The network’s collaborative approach has helped leverage additional resources for the community. Initial support from the Wege Foundation helped launch the initiative and opened the door to new funding opportunities, including the SDoH Hub Food Delivery pilot, safe sleep education and supplies through the West Michigan Perinatal Quality Collaborative, and early childhood navigation supported by the Ready by Five Millage.

Through these partnerships, the network has expanded access to services such as safe sleep education and equipment, while strengthening the overall support system available to families.

Adapting to Strengthening Community Systems Together

Due to limited resources, the initiative evolved into a formal convening network, with the core organizations remaining committed to a shared vision of what a community of practice could look like. Partners have each elected to share responsibility for hosting meetings and to regularly communicate about the barriers our communities face, the knowledge or capacity within the network to address these issues, and ways we can collectively advocate for system change.

When organizations collaborate in this way, the impact reaches beyond individual programs. Together, partners are building a stronger, more connected system of care, one that empowers communities and improves access to resources for everyone.