Health care reform calls for unprecedented investments in the nation’s community health centers, paving the way to serve millions more Americans who are currently uninsured, underserved, or medically disadvantaged. Yet unless community health centers can resolve persistent workforce shortages, they will be hard pressed to reach those in need and meet the demand for affordable, high quality, cost-effective health care.

Through Jobs to Careers, four community health centers have partnered with education institutions and other community organizations to change the way frontline employees are trained, rewarded, and advanced. Growing Their Own details how these partnerships have developed career paths and made them easily available to frontline employees.

This piece is one in a four-part series on advancing frontline workers across four health care subsectors. The complete series is as follows:

• Behavioral/Metal Health: Improving Access and Quality
• Community Health Centers: “Growing Their Own” Skilled Workforces
• Hospitals: The Resource Within
• Long-term Care: Attracting and Retaining Talent