Community Health Apprenticeship Program: From apprentice to employee

Before she applied for the Community Health Apprenticeship Program (CHAP) at Chicago House, Xay Dé Fisher balanced a demanding schedule of teaching music, working with kids, and holding an overnight job. She pursued CHAP out of a desire to advance professionally as well as to work with and lift up other Black trans women like herself. Xay enrolled in CHAP in July 2020 as part of the program’s eleventh cohort and its second completely virtual cohort. While she missed the opportunity to be physically in the same space as her other cohort members, she found a welcoming and affirming group among her digital peers. “I liked that everyone in the cohort already had this grounded understanding of gender and race,” she says. “Everyone was very knowledgeable and self-aware, and it was nice not having to overly explain things and instead have these open-ended dialogues.”

Xay speaks highly of the program’s guest speakers; since many of them were around her age, she could more easily see herself reflected in their experiences and roles as she continued to pursue training for a community health career. She also speaks to the “constant level of uplifting—of ‘yes, you can’”—promoted by the cohort members, career specialists, and other TransWorks staff who counseled her through the program.

Working one-on-one with TransWorks staff was especially valuable, as it translated her years of “service work and retail work and restaurant work into something that looks presentable and applicable in a professional, white-centric job market,” says Xay. “The access to people who know how to do that and know how to create resumes among other things is really beneficial.”

Along the way, CHAP reinforced that “the energy that you get from the program, you have to apply it and keep applying it.” Upon graduating from CHAP with various elective certifications, including HIV testing and counseling and mandated reporting, Xay remarks that “all the doors just kind of started to open all at once.” She started her own podcast and YouTube channel centered on the Black queer experience, which in turn opened up collaborations with other people creating like-minded content. She applied for the open CHAP Coordinator position at the urging of several career specialists she’d worked with and ultimately accepted the role.

While interviewing applicants for the next CHAP cohort, Xay and CHAP Manager Matt Graham noticed that “Black trans women or other Black people seemed to have a different glow around them when they saw me on the call.” To Xay, it speaks to the importance of Black people seeing themselves reflected in the program and being mentored by folks who share their same experiences and identities.

“I’m used to these programs saying, ‘We’re going to help Black people, especially Black queer people!’ but they don’t really know the experience if they’re not coming from the same angle,” says Xay. “Because of the empowerment that I felt, I definitely started to pursue what I wanted to pursue. Being a part of the program really ignited me.”

CHAP is open to Black and Latinx individuals ages 18-35 who identify as LGBTQ+ and are interested in careers in community health and HIV. In addition to vocational training, cohorts hear from community health workers, acquire job placement and retention skills, and navigate the job search with tailored assistance from a Chicago House career specialist. Learn more about CHAP or apply for an upcoming cohort.