What is the Community Health and Wellbeing Worker?
A co-designed outreach model built on three foundations
A new workforce role
The CHWW is a dedicated community-facing worker who builds relationships with local residents, connects people to existing health and social care services, and bridges the gap between communities and the primary care system. This model has seen great success internationally, and we're seeing how this model can benefit communities in Australia.
Grounding in community
We co-designed this role with residents, community organisations and clinicians in Melbourne's west, starting in the Wyndham Vale area. Drawing on the international benchmarks from Westminster and Cornwall, the role is built around local needs, local trust and local knowledge, instead of a top-down service model.
Proactive engagement
Currently, the health system waits for people to arrive. The CHWW model turns that around. This embedded community worker will reach people where they are. Other models have reported improvements in health literacy, increased uptake of cancer screenings, vaccinations, and GP health checks, and reduced preventable emergency department presentations that place pressure on the entire system.
Why this matters
Too many people only encounter the health system when they are already unwell. For vulnerable communities facing language barriers, cultural mistrust of Western medicine, or the logistical challenges of navigating a complex system, preventive care like cancer screenings, vaccinations and GP health checks can feel out of reach. The result is delayed diagnoses, avoidable hospital admissions and a health system under pressure from conditions that could have been caught earlier. Inspired by work from Brazil and proven across multiple sites in the United Kingdom, the Community Health and Wellbeing Worker model offers a practical, evidence-backed solution: a trusted, locally embedded worker who visits households, builds relationships and connects people to the care that already exists before a health crisis, be it a natural disaster or a pandemic that forces their hand.
What we're changing
Vulnerable communities face significant barriers accessing the preventive health and social care services that could keep them well. The system currently relies on people finding their own way in, and for many, that journey is blocked by language, cultural distance, limited health literacy or simply not knowing what is available.
We're redesigning with residents, community organisations and clinicians in the Wyndham area to develop a Community Health and Wellbeing Worker model. We completed co-design with this community to get a good understanding of their needs, ensuring that we built local trust, listened to local knowledge and addressed a local need.
Drawing on proven international benchmarks and the existing expertise of partners including IPC Health, Mercy Health, the North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network, Community Hubs Australia and Wyndham City Council, this role can add genuine value without duplicating existing services.
The goal is a rigorously evaluated, community-endorsed pilot that demonstrates measurable improvements in health literacy, preventive care uptake and long-term population health outcomes, and that makes the case for scaling this model across Victoria and beyond.
Our experts
Associate Professor Stephanie Best
A/Prof Best leads the Melbourne Implementation Research Group at the School of Health Sciences. Her expertise in translating complex health interventions into real-world practice is central to the CHWW project, ensuring the co-designed model is rigorously developed, embedded in evidence and built for scale.
Professor Harriet Hiscock
As Academic Lead for the Transforming Healthcare Impact Area, Professor Hiscock brings deep expertise in keeping children out of hospital, reducing low-value care and integrating health, social and education services for vulnerable families. Her focus on real-world translation and community-facing implementation directly shapes the CHWW project's ambition to reach children and families before a health crisis takes hold.