Top 12 Community Health Worker Skills to Put on Your Resume
In the vital field of community health, workers equipped with a diverse set of skills are indispensable for strengthening public well-being and navigating the twists and turns of modern care systems. This guide spotlights twelve core skills aspiring community health workers should showcase on their resumes to stand out in a demanding, deeply human line of work.
Community Health Worker Skills
- Outreach Coordination
- Health Education
- Case Management
- Cultural Competency
- Bilingual Communication
- Data Entry (e.g., Microsoft Excel)
- Patient Advocacy
- Crisis Intervention
- Health Screening
- Referral Networking
- Documentation (e.g., Electronic Health Records - EHR)
- Conflict Resolution
1. Outreach Coordination
Outreach coordination means planning and running efforts that connect people with services, education, and resources—then closing the loop so support actually sticks. It’s strategy with a neighborly handshake.
Why It's Important
It unlocks doors. Better engagement brings better access, stronger trust, smarter use of resources, and healthier outcomes across the community.
How to Improve Outreach Coordination Skills
Set sharp goals: Define specific, measurable objectives that match community needs and program capacity.
Know your neighborhoods: Map assets, barriers, languages, and local norms. Let community voices guide the plan.
Use simple tools: Track contacts, events, and follow-ups with spreadsheets or a basic CRM; keep it consistent.
Partner widely: Build ties with clinics, faith groups, food programs, schools, and mutual aid networks.
Train the team: Emphasize cultural humility, motivational interviewing, plain-language communication, and privacy basics.
Measure and adapt: Review participation, referrals, and outcomes; refine quickly when the data nudges you.
How to Display Outreach Coordination Skills on Your Resume
2. Health Education
Health education means shaping clear, relevant messages and learning experiences that help people understand risks, build habits, and act—on their terms, in their language.
Why It's Important
Knowledge changes choices. Clear education boosts confidence, reduces preventable illness, and lightens the load on urgent and acute care.
How to Improve Health Education Skills
Keep learning: Refresh content with current guidelines, local data, and community priorities.
Design for health literacy: Use plain language, visuals, and repeat-back methods; test materials with real community members.
Go where people are: Workshops at libraries, barbershops, markets, shelters, and online spaces reach the hesitant and the busy.
Co-create: Involve community leaders in message design so advice feels familiar, not foreign.
Close the loop: Build feedback moments; update materials when something confuses or misses the mark.
How to Display Health Education Skills on Your Resume
3. Case Management
Case management blends coordination, coaching, and follow-through. You connect clients with medical care, benefits, housing help, food, behavioral health, and more—then track progress and troubleshoot roadblocks.
Why It's Important
Complex needs demand coordinated answers. Good case management reduces duplication, improves adherence, and drives measurable improvements.
How to Improve Case Management Skills
Standardize the flow: Intake, assess, plan, act, review. Use checklists and templates to keep details tight.
Communicate relentlessly: Confirm appointments, clarify instructions, and translate jargon into everyday language.
Map resources: Maintain a living directory of clinics, low-cost meds, transportation, legal aid, and emergency supports.
Work the calendar: Prioritize high-risk cases, schedule reminders, and build in routine follow-ups.
Document clearly: Summaries, action items, and next steps—short, accurate, secure.
Champion the client: Goals should reflect the client’s preferences, not just the system’s constraints.
How to Display Case Management Skills on Your Resume
4. Cultural Competency
Cultural competency is the willingness and skill to work effectively across languages, beliefs, and norms—meeting people with respect and tailoring care so it fits their lives.
Why It's Important
It builds trust. It cuts inequities. And it makes advice actionable, not abstract.
How to Improve Cultural Competency Skills
Learn continuously: Explore local histories, faith practices, health beliefs, and community priorities.
Check your lens: Reflect on bias and assumptions; seek supervision or peer feedback to spot blind spots.
Communicate for clarity: Avoid jargon, confirm understanding, and invite corrections.
Show up: Attend community events; listen more than you speak; build real relationships.
Adapt the approach: Shift formats, hours, and channels to meet cultural and linguistic needs.
How to Display Cultural Competency Skills on Your Resume
5. Bilingual Communication
Bilingual communication means giving and receiving information in more than one language, with cultural nuance and accuracy intact.
Why It's Important
Language access is health access. It enables trust, correct instructions, and fair use of services—especially for people who’ve been sidelined by language barriers.
How to Improve Bilingual Communication Skills
Strengthen both languages: Practice speaking, reading, and writing; seek feedback from native speakers.
Focus on health terms: Build vocabulary for symptoms, medications, insurance, and consent.
Use tools wisely: Translation apps can help in a pinch; verify critical details with certified interpreters when stakes are high.
Mind the culture: Learn idioms, etiquette, and nonverbal cues that shape understanding.
Immerse locally: Community events and conversation groups sharpen fluency fast.
How to Display Bilingual Communication Skills on Your Resume
6. Data Entry (e.g., Microsoft Excel)
Data entry is the careful capture and maintenance of information for access, analysis, and reporting. For CHWs, that includes client logs, referrals, screenings, follow-ups, and outcomes.
Why It's Important
Clean data drives smart decisions—targeting outreach, tracking trends, and proving impact.
How to Improve Data Entry (e.g., Microsoft Excel) Skills
Master the basics: Shortcuts, tables, filters, and freeze panes speed the work and cut errors.
Validate inputs: Use dropdowns, data types, and simple rules to prevent bad entries.
Template everything: Standard forms for intakes, screenings, and follow-ups keep fields consistent.
Automate repetitive steps: Quick macros or recorded actions save minutes that add up.
Clean routinely: Remove duplicates, fix formats, and spot outliers on a schedule.
Close the feedback loop: Ask data users what they need; adjust fields and definitions accordingly.
How to Display Data Entry (e.g., Microsoft Excel) Skills on Your Resume
7. Patient Advocacy
Patient advocacy means standing with the patient: clarifying rights, surfacing preferences, removing barriers, and navigating systems that can feel maze-like.
Why It's Important
People get timely, respectful care when someone helps them ask questions, understand choices, and reach services without getting lost.
How to Improve Patient Advocacy Skills
Listen first: Center the client’s goals; confirm priorities in their own words.
Demystify care: Translate clinical guidance, coverage rules, and referrals into plain steps.
Strengthen navigation: Build checklists for appointments, authorizations, transportation, and follow-up labs or imaging.
Know protections: Understand privacy, consent, grievance processes, and appeal pathways.
Document wins and gaps: Track barriers you encounter and raise patterns to supervisors or policy leads.
Practice empathy: Trauma-informed, stigma-free support changes outcomes.
How to Display Patient Advocacy Skills on Your Resume
8. Crisis Intervention
Crisis intervention is immediate, short-term support for people in acute distress—stabilizing safety, lowering intensity, and connecting to ongoing care.
Why It's Important
Quick, skilled responses prevent harm, preserve dignity, and bridge people to services before problems escalate.
How to Improve Crisis Intervention Skills
Train regularly: Refresh skills in suicide risk, de-escalation, and safety planning.
Build local pathways: Maintain warm connections with mobile crisis teams, hotlines, shelters, and urgent care.
Listen with care: Use calm tone, reflective statements, and clear next steps.
Work with culture in mind: Tailor responses to beliefs, language, and family roles.
Protect yourself: Use supervision, debriefs, and boundaries to prevent burnout.
How to Display Crisis Intervention Skills on Your Resume
9. Health Screening
Health screening identifies risks or early signs of disease in people without obvious symptoms—so action begins before trouble deepens.
Why It's Important
Early detection changes the trajectory: quicker treatment, fewer complications, better quality of life.
How to Improve Health Screening Skills
Follow current guidelines: Keep age, risk, and frequency recommendations up to date.
Reduce friction: Offer screenings at community sites, with flexible hours and no-cost options when possible.
Be culturally responsive: Tailor messages and consent processes to local languages and norms.
Close referral loops: Arrange appointments, reminders, and transportation for abnormal results.
Track outcomes: Monitor completion rates and time to follow-up; adjust outreach accordingly.
How to Display Health Screening Skills on Your Resume
10. Referral Networking
Referral networking is the art of connecting clients to the right services—medical, social, legal, housing—and keeping those relationships warm.
Why It's Important
No single program meets every need. Strong networks mean faster help, fewer dead ends, and more complete care.
How to Improve Referral Networking Skills
Map the ecosystem: Build a living directory with eligibility rules, intake hours, languages, and contact names.
Create feedback loops: Ask clients and partners what worked, what stalled, and why.
Standardize referrals: Use clear forms, consent steps, and handoff scripts.
Track status: Log sent referrals, confirmations, outcomes, and barriers; follow up until resolved.
Invest in relationships: Attend coalition meetings, share data snapshots, and celebrate mutual wins.
How to Display Referral Networking Skills on Your Resume
11. Documentation (e.g., Electronic Health Records - EHR)
Documentation captures the story: histories, plans, services delivered, outcomes observed. In EHR systems, that story is structured, shareable, and secure.
Why It's Important
Accurate records support continuity of care, inform decision-making, and demonstrate impact—while protecting privacy.
How to Improve Documentation (e.g., Electronic Health Records - EHR) Skills
Use standard templates: Consistent fields reduce missing data and speed charting.
Document promptly: Enter notes same day when details are fresh.
Leverage EHR features: Smart phrases, dropdowns, and checklists cut errors and save time.
Prioritize privacy: Follow HIPAA and relevant state rules; share the minimum necessary.
Quality checks: Audit for completeness and accuracy; correct quickly.
Support and training: Seek refreshers and quick tips when workflows change.
How to Display Documentation (e.g., Electronic Health Records - EHR) Skills on Your Resume
12. Conflict Resolution
Conflict resolution brings people back to the table. It’s listening, clarifying, and guiding groups toward solutions everyone can live with.
Why It's Important
Teams function better. Clients feel heard. Services move without friction.
How to Improve Conflict Resolution Skills
Listen deeply: Reflect what you heard; separate facts from assumptions.
Name interests, not positions: Surface the underlying needs that drive disagreement.
Stay clear and calm: Use neutral language, summarize options, and outline next steps.
Co-create solutions: Brainstorm, test feasibility, and lock in specific commitments.
Bring in a neutral: When stuck, use a mediator or supervisor to reset the process.
How to Display Conflict Resolution Skills on Your Resume
