Cancer Care Companion

Job Summary

The Lazarex Cancer Wellness HUB is a safe space for community members to talk about their health concerns across the continuum of cancer care. It is designed to provide culturally appropriate resources to answer questions, navigate historical fears, misperceptions, and cultural barriers, understand the implications of family cancer history and the importance of screenings, explore options for prevention through lifestyle choices, and support patients and their caregivers from treatment through survivorship. The Cancer Wellness HUB functions as an actual hub within the West Philadelphia community, bringing together the many resources and services required to manage the cancer journey and provide the greatest opportunity for a successful result. The Cancer Care Companion, located at the Lazarex Cancer Wellness HUB will orchestrate and coordinates all facets of cancer care implementation and navigation for vulnerable West Philadelphia residents. This entails coordinating activities spanning prevention, screening, treatment, clinical trial enrollment, and support services in active partnership with local faith-based institutions.

Essential Functions

• Care Coordination, Connection and Navigation
  
  
  
  • Collaborate with medical providers and social services agencies to organize and implement the collaborative process of assessment, planning, facilitation, care coordination, evaluation, and patient advocacy for options and services to meet the community members and their family's comprehensive cancer health needs.
  • Utilize appropriate and credible resources responsive to community member's needs (practical, social, physical, emotional, spiritual), meeting the community members where they are, taking into consideration reading level, health literacy, culture, language, and amount of information desired.
  • Refer to trusted community partners, licensed clinicians for physical and mental concerns and to educational workshops, seminars, and support group services.
  • Maintains contact with residents and follow-up with them to ensure needs are being met and barriers are reduced. Performs special project assignments required to support the implementation and evaluation of patient navigation.
  
  
  
  
• Connect & Bridge
  
  
  
  • Meets with the community members and serves as a bridge between the community members and cancer screening, treatment, genomic testing, clinical trials, and survivorship. Help individuals, families, groups, and communities develop their capacity and access to resources, including health insurance, food, housing, transportation, quality care, and health information. Engages the community members in conversations about their cancer needs and concerns. They will connect the community member to resources and services needed, maintain community members trust, confidence, by maintaining community members information, document activities, and outcomes achieved by the community members in an effective manner.
  
  
  
  
• Facilitate Health Education and Special Projects
  
  
  
  • Using educational materials created by the Cancer Wellness HUB team the Cancer Care Companion will facilitate health educational sessions with individuals and groups in the neighborhood about cancer screening, diagnosis, treatment, genomic testing, navigation, and clinical trials.
  
  
  
  
• Performs special project assignments required and works collaboratively and effectively with fellow Neighborhood Health Ambassadors and other team members, attends team and community meeting, and performs additional work-related duties as requested.
• Builds and Maintain Partnership
  
  
  
  • Engage and develop partnerships with local organizations to ensure a smooth hand-off between the organization and the residents. Ensure that organizations are providing a trusting, respectful, and supportive process for cancer service and care.
  
  
  
  
• Data Collection, Tracking & Documentation
  
  
  
  • Lazarex Cancer Wellness HUB electronic Salesforce system will be used to document all community member encounters, referrals and contacts and generate necessary reports. The HUB Interest Form seamlessly connects the community members to the Cancer Care Companion and Neighborhood Health Ambassador.
  
  
  
  
• Perform other duties as assigned

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Nursing, Public Health, or related field OR the equivalent combination of education and work experience.
  
  
  
  • Please review the Equivalency Chart for additional information.
  
  
  
  
• 5+ years of experience with health care navigation, health promotion, and disease prevention, program development and implementation, and community engagement.
• 5+ years leading partnerships and collaborations with community leaders and multiple partners, including hospitals, organizations, residents, and academic institutions, using a culturally congruent health equity and social justice framework.
• Experience with community engagement and community outreach

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's Degree
• Strong organization, management, and leadership skills with integrity, cultural competence, flexibility, and adaptability.
• Strong collaborative skills, comfort, and ability to relate, communicate and appeal to diverse individuals and groups in various forums.
• Strategic thinker with a vision to create and accomplish long-term goals.
• Strong interpersonal, social, and communication skills and the ability to collaborate and work effectively with a wide range of individuals from a wide range of professional and personal backgrounds.
• Ability to plan, implement, and evaluate individual client care plans and cancer education programs.
• Strong computer skills.
• Effective documentation and follow-up skills, with attention to detail.
• Strong organizational and time management skills.
• Good written communication skills.

Physical Requirements

• Typically sitting at a desk/table
• Typically standing, walking

Location

• Philadelphia, PA

Additional Information

This position is classified as exempt, grade I. Compensation for this grade ranges from $41,120 - $61,680. Please note that the offered rate for this position typically aligns with the minimum to midrange of this grade, but it can vary based on the successful candidate's qualifications and experience, department budget, and an internal equity review.

We encourage you to explore Drexel's Professional Staff salary structure and Compensation Guidelines & Policies for more details on our compensation framework.

You can also find valuable information about our benefits in the Benefits Brochure.

Special Instructions to the Applicant

Please make sure you upload your CV/resume and cover letter when submitting your application.

A review of applicants will begin once a suitable candidate pool is identified.