Care Connect Washington is a state program designed to slow the spread of COVID-19 by giving people what they need to successfully quarantine after a positive COVID-19 test. Community organizations fulfill household needs like fresh groceries, medication and health care assistance.
“We were seeing really low numbers from the Slavic community, even though we knew they were dealing with a lot of COVID-19 cases,” said Nicole Hamberger of Southwest Washington Accountable Community of Health (SWACH).
SWACH and Lutheran Community Services Northwest (LCSNW) in Vancouver, Washington, are two local organizations implementing the Care Connect program for Clark, Skamania and Klickitat counties. Nicole has been the point person coordinating cases with organizations, such as LCSNW, that work directly with clients in need. Among the Care Connect partners in southwest Washington, LCSNW has the greatest focus on the Russian-speaking population.
Nicole and Joe Asbridge, of LCSNW, looked more closely at the typical client journey for Care Connect and saw ways to improve it for the local Slavic population. Although people can “self-refer”—request Care Connect help by calling a toll-free statewide number—most of the southwest Washington requests for help were coming through contact tracing, and none of them were for people in the Russian-speaking community. “Since the goal of Care Connect is to reduce the spread, we need to move fast to offer assistance in an appropriate way,” said Asbridge.
The solution was to invite people to self-refer directly to LCSNW in their own language, with SWACH and LCSNW handling the administrative steps with the state. The Department of Health granted SWACH access to the state’s disease reporting system so that case numbers could be generated locally and client needs could be met quickly. LCSNW’s care coordinators Dmitry Nikiforov and Lyza Zastela agreed to have their individual phone numbers printed on flyers in Russian promoting the Care Connect program. The flyers began going out in late summer of 2021.
The results were clear. “We never had a Russian- or Ukrainian-speaking Care Connect client before the flyers. Now they are between a quarter and third of our caseload,” Joe reports.
Nicole and Joe both see the success with Care Connect as a pathway for engaging the Slavic community beyond COVID-19 services. Earning the community’s trust opens the door to provide other supports and access to care for a lifetime of health and stability. When looking at the specific needs of a population like SWACH and LCSNW did, the result can be what moves an entire community forward.